The Ranch – Saturday
Morning, March 18,1989
Lisa nodded towards the barn. “Your dad could
use your help. Oliver broke down in the field yesterday. He had to tow it in
with the International. He’s in the barn.”
Lisa was referring to the 1950 Oliver GM Diesel
that Jerry entered in the tractor pull during the summer of ’84. “Beat It” had played
over the PA system to kick-off the evening’s tractor events as he sat astride
the iron horse packed only with stock power. Michael Jackson’s “Victory” tour had
kicked off in Kansas City in June, and he was there with his high school
sweetheart, Laurie. Michael was the hottest celebrity on the planet, and Jerry
in his prime of eighteen felt he had the hottest girl and iron muscle to win
the pull.
“Oh, yeah? Well I’d better get to it.” Snapped
back to reality, he headed off to what he knew would be a long day of work on
no sleep.
Entering the barn, a set of cowboy boots poked
out from underneath the green tractor, its orange grill still gritted strength
to push over fence posts. He remembered when he first saw the green monster,
probably five-years old, when the rear tires towered over his head, and he
could sit in the circumference of its wheel. With a low grunt and a jerk of his
legs, his dad tugged a wrench, giving he best effort to loosen a rusted-on
bolt. The other end of the drive shaft was propped up on cinder blocks.
“Hey dad, need a hand?”
“About time you showed up. Been at this since
the crack of dawn. Need to get a full day of plowin’. Rain’s settin’ in.”
Jerry saw what needed to be done and lifted the
iron shaft off the block.
“How’s school? ‘Bout ready to graduate isn’t
ya?”
“Yup.”
“Yup, that’s it? Four years of college and your
answer is Yup? Spent my life savings
on your dream, boy. Could’ve used you
on the farm. Been in the family six generations. Great-great-great grand-pappy
Noah started this place with a team of mules and a plow.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, dad. Heard
the story before. Don’t think I was made to plow the fields.”
“So, what are you going to do with your life?”
Silence fell between them as birds chirped and flew about in the barn, and then
roosted on the beams.
“Not sure.”
“After four years of schoolin’ and your not sure? What about your dreams of the
city life, makin’ it rich sellin’ money? That’s all you talked about when you
came home on the rare occasion.”
“I know, just having a difficult time seeing it
now.”
“Hehe, maybe God’s closin’ a door for you to
come back here.”
“Don’t think so, Dad.”
“You think too much. Doesn’t take much thinkin’
to run this place, just a lot of hard backbreakin’ work that I’m beginnin’ to
feel in my bones.” He grunted, as the bolt broke free.
“Okay, Dad. We’ve been down this road before.”
He took a deep breath. May as well get
this over with. He exhaled with a sigh. “I feel like I’m being prepared to
do something else with my life. Does that sound better?”
Jerry’s dad looked at him, scorning the flippant
remark.
“That right? Whatever makes you feel good, son, is that how I taught
ya?”
“That’s not what I meant, Dad. Just that I had
an experience that, well, changed my life . . . caused me to ask God what he
wants me to do.”
“And that is?”
“To lead, teach, and heal.”
“What? So you think you’ve heard from God? Only way to do that is readin’ the Bible and
listenin’ to the bishop. Sounds like that new
age crap that Bishop James is warnin’ about. Said it’s comin’ outa places
that call themselves higher education.
The devil’s on the prowl, son. The healin’ stopped with Jesus and the apostles.
All of this healin’ mumbo-jumbo is fornication with the devil.” He grunted as he
pulled the wrench tight. “Got it! Enough of this talk. Let’s get to work on
them fields. You take this iron mule and plow the front forty. I’ll start on
the back. We’ll work our way down to the river through the week. Gotta get this
done before ya leave.”
Richard looked up at the cloudless blue sky.
“Normally we’d be prayin’ for no rain until the tillin’s done, but . . . ” he
stammered as he kicked up dust from the barnyard. “Last year’s drought has
given us all a shakeup. Pray for rain while ya plow and maybe it’ll get here
after the tillin’s done.”
Last summer was particularly stressful. The
drought of ’88 made a dust bowl of topsoil and ruined the entire crop of corn
and sorghum, nearly decimated the herd of 10,000 Hereford-Angus cattle, and
caused two wildfires of tall grass pasture covering 1000 acres.
Jerry climbed up on the old-style tractor,
nearly forty years old. He recalled his first tractor ride with Dad, bouncing
on his leg, the man’s burly arm holding him tightly around his chest. He
enjoyed life on the farm as a boy—any boy would, playing in the loft, fishing
on the river, trapping coons, and shooting hoops on the goal off the end of the
barn. He and his sister, would romp together all day long, truly playing Cowboy
and Indian as he would dress in his chaps, hat and bandana, she in her long
braids and hawk feathers that trailed behind her as she ran. She may as well
have been his brother, a spunky and feisty girl with courage, in part due to
the Indian blood she inherited from Mom, who taught them to ride, not that
their dad was not a competent roper—he just did not have time for the fun of
it. Lisa truly loved her family, and treasured what God had given her.
Jerry started the diesel engine. It roared to
life, bringing him back to the reality of the ranch. Life on the ranch was
lonely and hard, barely getting by, nearly losing it once to the bank. Dad was
up to his ears in debt and could not get out from underneath it. That is why he
hated “sellers of money.” He was not about to lose what his great, great,
great, granddad, Noah, had started. Noah. Said that God had given him the land
and he was to harvest from it. Harvest. The word rang in his head as he drove
the tractor over the plain, tilling the soil on the way to the river until
sunset.
† † †
Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
Excerpt from PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff
Cambridge, a writer of transformational fiction with real characters in
real-life tell stories that change lives in the readers as the characters
transform.
This is a pre-published
scene.
To read the
scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A
Novel – Prologue”
You will find
the previous episodes in the monthly archives. Click on them and enjoy.
Your comments
are welcomed and appreciated. Simply check one of the reaction boxes below,
write a comment, or email me at bycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a
work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and
locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and
authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
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