The Last Harvest(2)
Noodle does the math, tapping out the remaining acres on the side of her leg. She counts everything. I read somewhere it’s a form of OCD, but I think she’s just too smart for her own good.
“Can you keep a secret?” I crouch down so I can look her in the eye.
She knots her hands on her scrawny waist. “You know I can.”
“Hey, what happened to your finger?”
“Just a paper cut and no changing the subject.”
I rub the back of my neck. “I had a little engine trouble this morning … nothing I can’t fix.” Her glance veers toward the window, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. “Don’t worry. I’ll catch up. And don’t be going out there.” I reach out to muss up her wispy light-blond bangs; she ducks out of the way. She doesn’t like anyone touching her hair anymore. “I’ll take care of it after school. Deal?”
She zips her lips and locks them, pressing the imaginary key into my hand, before skipping off to the kitchen.
“And put a Band-Aid on that, okay?”
A fly buzzes past. I watch it as it lands on the bare wall above the mantel in the living room, where the crucifix used to hang.
It takes me right back to that night.
Dad came home from the Preservation Society meeting all wild-eyed.
“Ian Neely knew … they all knew,” he said.
Mom just thought he’d gotten into Charlie Miller’s homemade rye again, but I knew he wasn’t drunk. He was alert, too alert, like he was operating on pure adrenaline.
As he lifted the heavy metal crucifix down from over the mantelpiece, he kept saying, “The golden calf … it’s the sixth generation … the seed.” He stared right at me when he said it with a look of disgust. Mom tried to get him to calm down, but he shoved her against the wall and stormed out of the house. I followed him to the edge of the untilled wheat, grabbing on to his arm to stop him. He turned, clutching the crucifix tight to his chest. “I have to stop the evil before it’s born,” he said, his eyes drilling me in place. “God forgive us, son.”
There was no moon that night. No stars, like they knew what my dad was about to do, like they couldn’t bear to watch.
“Fifteen minutes, Clay,” Mom calls from the kitchen.
Letting go of the memory, I rush upstairs, turn on the faucet, and strip off my clothes. I’m shivering my ass off waiting for the water to heat up, though it never makes it past lukewarm. One of the many perks of living with three girls. I step in the tub and tug the plastic curtain shut. The sound of the rusty metal loops scraping against the curtain rod reminds me of the hoof jammed in the cutting blades. It sets my teeth on edge.
I try not to think about it, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how the calf got there. Since the Neely ranch closed, the closest cattle ranch is two towns over in Monroe. It had golden fur, the same color as the wheat. Just like my dad talked about before he died. I’ve never seen a calf that color before. It couldn’t have been more than a day old. No way it could’ve wandered all the way over here on its own.
Unless someone put it there.
Wouldn’t put it past Tyler, Ian Neely’s son. It’s more than bad blood. Ever since Dad died, Tyler’s always staring at me in this strange expectant way. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to lose my shit like my dad did. Maybe everyone is.
Grabbing a towel from the rack, I coax it around my waist; it’s still pretty stiff from drying on the line. I shuffle down the hall to my room. Besides the thick black garbage bags taped up over the windows and the pill bottles cluttering my bedside table, it looks just like it did before. At first, the garbage bags were just a way to keep out the light, but then it became this weird thing, almost like I wanted to preserve everything inside. Sometimes I think about taking it all down—the mementos, the posters, the football trophies—but I can’t bring myself to do it. Dad took me to every practice, stood on the sidelines for every game. Outside this room, people can say whatever they want about him, but in here, he’s still just my dad.
Peeling back a corner of one of the garbage bags, I peer out over the crops. Hammy’s out there pacing the perimeter of the wheat. For a second, I wonder if he somehow got to the calf and dragged it out into the field, but that mutt hasn’t set foot in the wheat since Dad died, almost like he’s scared of it.
We’ve run over plenty of animals in the fields. It’s awful, but that’s life on the farm. One time we even found a black bear. We figured he must’ve tried to make a den out there. But seeing the newborn calf rattled me. With good f*cking reason.
I try not to read too much into it. Noodle says that’s the trouble with me: I keep trying to make sense out of everything.
“Clay?” Mom hollers up the stairs. “Five minutes, okay, hon?” The sound of her voice makes me wince. She tries so hard to keep it light and sunny, but it just reeks of desperation, like she’s one step away from being sent to Oakmoor.
I pull on some boxers and a T-shirt. For the millionth time, I think about selling the farm. Mr. Neely offered a while back, enough to get us out of town. But it feels like I’d be betraying Dad, betraying our entire family history. We weren’t Sooners like some of the other families in neighboring counties. We didn’t steal the land by camping out before the land rush and hiding in the brush like little *s. My family started at the roundup and fought it out with the best of them. We got the best parcel, too. Dad always used to joke around that our family used up all their luck getting this land. Either that or they made some kind of deal with the Devil. Besides, Noodle’d be crushed if I sold. She has this crazy idea she wants to run the farm someday. It’s not that she can’t do it; when she puts her mind to it, Noodle can do anything. I just want something better for her.