Hay for a Horse

HAY FOR A HORSE

Travis Stephens

The left brake didn’t work well and the right side caught in quick, brutal jerks. Roman stomped his foot hard into the space where his boot could slam onto both brakes at the same time. Tractors had only rear brakes and on old tractors these were tenuous at best. Roman countered the quick break stab with the other foot onto the clutch and he slowed the big Oliver-White enough to make the gravel driveway of the farm. He did not downshift, but roared through the yard before lurching to a dusty halt before the big doors of the machine shed.

Roman leapt from the seat of the tractor almost before the engine had died; clearing the fender with one spring, landing hard in the gravel, and feeling the shock through his boots to his knees. Without hesitation he ran into the cool shade of the shed, hurrying to the pile of rusted implement parts that littered the bed of an old hay rack. He pushed aside a bucket of ten penny nails and threw asides two harrow blades and a bicycle fender. The part did not seem to be there so Roman spun on his heel to think of where else it could possibly be. “Run quick to the tin shed and look on the hay rack,” Glen had told him. Roman had been harrowing and upon that order had unhooked the harrow to speed off on the Oliver to leave Glenn and Donald to work together to remove the twisted corn planter disc before he returned with a replacement.

The three and a half mile drive to the home farm had been enough to waken Roman from the torpid state he had fallen into while driving the slow-moving harrow. Dreading the notion of Glenn waiting for his return, he spurred himself to a run as he searched for the needed part. Breakfast and dinner hours lulled at the farm but the working hours burned in the sun.

Roman was emerging from the small wooden tool shed with the corn planter part when a small hatchback drove into the yard. The car stopped near the barn and a man emerged. The man walked toward where Roman stood at the side of the tractor, stowing the part in the tractor’s toolbox. Roman stepped closer to the hulk of the machine and hoped that the man would not see him.

He was tall and thin with very narrow, pale hands. The wind that had picked up from out of the southeast tousled his thinning hair and billowed at his polyester pants, revealing thin legs and a pair of crepe soled suede shoes. As the man came nearer Roman didn’t look at him but climbed upon the tractor to drive off.

“Excuse me,” the man spoke to Roman’s back. Roman spun around to see the man standing just to the right of the drawbar. He curbed the urge to jam the tractor in reverse to make the man jump to avoid the rear tire.

“What?” Roman barked at him.

“I’m wondering if you could help me.” The thin man paused and Roman wanted to interrupt with a fiery “no.”

Roman knew who the man was. Glenn had mentioned a man who had bought hay for his horse from the neighboring Turnbull farm. The Turnbulls had sold hay to the man last year but refused him this year, telling him that they were all out of hay. Johnny Turnbull had got quite a kick out of saying that, he had said, because the rafters overhead creaked from the weight of the alfalfa even as he spoke the words.

The man seemed to sense something in Roman’s silence and he spoke again. “I would be grateful if you could help me. My horse is hungry, you see, and I don’t have any grass left to turn him into.”

These Chicago millionaires, Roman thought to himself, buy some land up here, get a few cattle, call themselves farmers and then run out of feed for turning the cattle out to pasture when the grass is too young. He looked for a moment at the man’s car. It blocked the driveway and he wondered if the man knew it was going to rain. The clouds were scudding in on the southeast wind and Roman knew that Glenn wanted to plant the last fifteen acres before the rains came.

“It doesn’t have to be good hay,” the man said softly, “just something to stop my horse from chewing at the boards of his manger.”

Roman climbed down from the tractor seat to face the man. He wanted to tell him how busy he was, wanted to tell him to go someplace else, wanted to tell him to just go away. “Come on,” he said at last.

The barn was cool and dark inside. Roman hurried to the ladder to the hay-mow and found himself angry with himself for giving in to the man’s request.

“Wait here.” he said as the thin man tried to follow him to the ladder. Roman walked across the empty, bare part of the wooden floor to where the pile began. He pulled at a bale of course timothy and then hesitated at it. When hay is made, the first cutting yields the most, albeit coarser, hay. The second cutting is of higher quality for its lesser yield and softer with leaves and flowers. The bale of timothy was a bale of first-crop.

He set the timothy down and climbed further back in the mow to pick up a bale of tender second-crop clover. The bale was molded and deformed out of its sharp rectangular shape as it was pushed down the chute. Roman wondered absently if the man had moved away from the chute and ladder or whether the bale had hit him.

When Roman got to the bottom of the ladder he saw the man standing there, saw how the man looked strangely at the bale of hay. His hands were clasped and held close to his body and he eyed the bale as if it were a turtle crossing a busy highway. With his hands clasped Roman could see that livid scars showed on the back of his hands. They fluttered to his chest and shook, birdlike.

Roman hefted the bale of hay and carried it out of the barn to the man’s car. The man shuffled around to unlock the hatchback and Roman lifted the bale into the back of the car and closed it. He knew it would be no small job to remove the hay chaff from the carpet that lined the inside.

The thin man was staring down at his shoes when Roman turned to him. Roman followed his eyes and saw that a smear of manure darkened the toe of this suede Hush Puppies. He then looked to the leather, cracked toes of his own work boots. He then bent down and, taking a handful of loose hay in his hand, cleaned the toe of the shoe and brushed away at the rest of the shoe. Roman did not know why he had done such a thing, but he felt better somehow when he stood once again. The man’s eyes were pale and seemed bright with fever or emotion. Roman looked away and turned to walk back to the tractor.

“Wait.
Roman stopped. “What?”

“How-how much do you want for the hay?”

“I don’t know,” he was tied of the conversation and mumbled, “I just work here. Come back again and pay the boss sometime for it.”

The man seemed taken aback and stammered a “thank you.” He then looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t.

Roman turned back, asking, “Do you know the Turnbulls?”

The man’s face looked blank and confused. Roman shrugged at his silence and walked over to the big Oliver-White. It roared to life and he followed the hatchback out of the driveway and watched it pull away. He noticed that it had to license plates and he wondered at that as the little car’s tail-lights flickered around the bend. Then Roman eased the tractor out of the yard and turned toward Glenn awaiting the coming rain.