“I’ve always hated this time of day,” the father said, holding the wheel at twelve o’clock. “It’s so quiet and sad. Contemplative. It makes me nostalgic. Sentimental. It feels like being in limbo.”

He realized then he was being negative and of no help to his wife so he stopped talking. He looked at her and tried to decide what he could do to make her feel better. He thought about taking her hand but they were folded together and tucked between her knees so he went back to watching the road.

They passed Lacey Park empty from the cold, the grass a soft brown and beyond it the short stubble of the cornfield obscured in the failing light. He felt tired—they both were—and he turned the heater off and switched on the brights. The broken yellow line bright among all the gray.

When they came over Airport Hill he hit the brakes and stopped. She sat up.

“What is it?” she said.

They moved like shadows, their eyes flashing green as they paused to look into the headlights before ambling onto the road, yellow eartags on black, undefined shapes jostling, a few catching their back hooves on the downed barbed wire as they took up both lanes of the highway and headed east.

He waited until they had all cleared the fence before he began to drive again.

“Whose are they?” she asked.

“What’s going on, Dad?” the boy asked sleepily, quiet.

“These cows got out,” he said.

“But whose are they?” she asked again.

“They could be anybody’s,” he said. “This is the old Kaufman place but they haven’t had cattle for years. I’m sure they’re just renting the stalks.”

Dark set in now and in the night, without their eyes or eartags to catch the light, only the few cattle in the rear of the herd appeared in the soft white car glow. The rest walked ahead into the black.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“What can we do? These aren’t our cattle. Do you know how to herd cows? I don’t.”

“Maybe we should stop and talk to somebody.”

“OK. We can do that. The Bauer place is just up here. If they stay on the road we’ll just follow them until they get there.”

The cattle stuck to the road. A few would drift off to the sides and walk down into the barrow pits and stop to eat weeds, but as soon as there was some distance between them and the herd, usually not more than twenty or thirty yards, they would stop eating and run to catch up with the others. The cows called to their calves in loud, searching bellars. The calves cried back.

When they came up to the Bauer place the lights inside were on and he pulled up the driveway.

“OK, I’ll make this quick.”

The house was built in the 50s and had a white wooden door facing the road. The three concrete steps had railings on both sides and as he walked up he could see the old man through the big living room window get up and come to the door before he had a chance to knock.

Bauer answered the door with strength and there was hostility on his face. He wore navy blue button-up pajamas and his white hair was expertly waxed.

“What is it?”

“Did you hear all those cattle go by?’

“I didn’t hear anything. We had the TV on.” He looked down the road at the cattle. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, they got out by the Kaufman place, the fence was down, and we were wondering if you might know whose cattle they are be so we could call them.”

“No, I don’t know whose cattle they are. I don’t hardly know anybody that lives around here anymore. Most of the people that live out here anymore are trash, hiding out from somebody or something. Most of them aren’t any good. It sure ain’t like it was.”

“Well, do you have any ideas of what we should do?”

“Call the police. That or just let ‘em walk. They’ll find something. A corn pile or something. They probably were on the stalks too long. Probably ran out of food. Come daylight somebody’s going to notice they’re missing. That’s what I’d do. Don’t think you can call the Kaufman’s. They’re both gone. Call the police or go home. Not my problem. Not yours either.”

When he got back to the car his wife and son were sitting there quiet.

“What’d he say?”

“He said ‘not my problem.’”

“Really. Did he know whose cattle they were?”

“Nope. And he didn’t seem to care too much what happened to them.”

Back on the highway they picked up speed. He hoped they had gotten off the road, maybe found another field to graze. But in less than two miles they caught up to them.

“This is like the running of the bulls,” he said. “This is the running of the cows.”

“Yep, and you’re just like Hemingway. Exactly like Hemingway.”

“This is getting ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you just honk and maybe they’ll get out of the way?” the boy said. “Outta our way, cows!”

“Because we don’t want to scare them,” she said.

The black shapes continued to snort and buck and bellar. It went on for two more miles before they saw a truck facing toward them stopped on the shoulder. The cattle swam past and around like trout around a river rock. They pulled up next to the truck but before he could get his window all the way down the man inside waved and continued on, his taillights shrinking in the mirror.

“He probably thought these were our cows.”

“And that we’re herding them at six o’clock on a Sunday night in a family car, in the dark?” she said.

“No, you’re right. He probably just didn’t give a shit.”

“You cussed,” the boy said.

They withdrew and went silent. He drove on, slow behind the herd, following, watching, now feeling as though they were a part of a movement, connected somehow.

Then one of the animals stopped in the road and they could see it was the bull and that it was facing the car. He stopped the car. The three-year-old bull stood on the centerline, squared up to the car, its eyes green and bright. The rest of the cows went on.

“Maybe he’s tired of us following them,” she said.

“Maybe. God, he’s big,” he said. “Look at him. Look at his neck. He’s great. He’s huge.”

“Powerful,” she said. “A real bull.”

“What if he comes over here?” the boy asked from between their seats. “What if he charges? What if he rams the car? Can he get in here, dad?”

“He’s not going to get in here. He’s just as scared of us as we are of him.”

“I don’t think he’s that scared of us,” she said.

“He is. Trust me. He’s just acting tough.”

They waited for another moment. Then the bull tossed its head up and pawed the ground. Then it broke into a charge. It had no horns but it had a low, wide head with a small white star and its body blended into the darkness behind it.

“It’s coming at us,” she said, smiling, her voice more amazed than afraid.

“Dad!” the boy said.

When it was ten feet from the car he put it into reverse and started honking the horn.

“Bong! Bong-bong! Bong!”

The bull stopped and stood there with its head up watching them for a moment. He stopped the car. It turned around and ran back to the herd. He waited until the bull was lost in the darkness before he put the car in drive. They were all quiet and he drove slowly, slower than before.

In time they came to their turnoff. They could no longer see the cattle ahead so they turned south toward home. The boy fell back asleep. They didn’t look at each other as he drove on, the stars clear in the sky.

Write a fabulous story.

He sits there in bed with his wife, her reading a novel, him with his glasses off, not seeing just thinking.

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” he says into the shadows on the ceiling.

“There’s nothing else you can do.”

“You mean I’ve done enough. I’ve interfered enough.”

“No, I mean, some people just don’t want to be helped,” she says, closing her book and setting it down on the nightstand. She sets her glasses on the book and turns toward him and puts her hand on his forearm and pets the hair there.

“Jesus Christ, Judy, he’s my brother.”

“It doesn’t matter who he is, Steve, he doesn’t want your help. You can’t help people like that. Go to sleep. It’s late.”

She turns off the lamp but he stays there sitting up.

He knew this was coming. Their dad had had trouble with cigarettes, went on a oxygen tank when he was younger than Fred. He quit then but he wasn’t in very good shape. All those dirty kleenexes. That oxygen tank made him give it up but not Fred. Fact is he smoked more after he quit farming. His town job that’s all he did—smoke and drink coffee and drive around, talking bullshit.

What do you do when your brother, who also happens to be your best friend, who you know better than anyone in the world, won’t listen to you?

The day he knew there was trouble was the day he was supposed to meet him for lunch at Taco Town. His choice. In the entire time they had been brothers they had never missed each other for anything. They’d been late, sure, but never just didn’t show up.

He checked the office and he wasn’t there so he went out to the farm—a clear, false spring day, geese in vees in the sky, cows on the cornstalks. He found him inside, half asleep with poker on, barely awake even after he’d called through the house.

Fred sat up and pushed the blanket off. He was too sick to look surprised. His face looked gray and his eye was all red and bloodshot like he’d been scratching at it.

“Just go ahead and let yourself in,” he said with a cough.

He sat down on the loveseat and looked from his brother to the muted television.

“I wanted to see if I could get you to weld something for me. I don’t have the right equipment.”

“You never have the right equipment. I thought you were bringing me lunch.”

“Nope. I ate enough for both of us. Snooze you lose.”

They watched the TV.

“Must be nice to have the day off,” Fred said. “Must be nice to have the entire winter off.”

“All right. That’s enough. You don’t want to tell me what’s going on, I don’t have to know.”

“You’re right. You don’t.”

“I still need that hitch welded.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He went out and got in his truck. Snow in the barrow pits and in the field rows along the highway but their yard was dry. After he put his truck away in the shed he went in and put on his coverall and then went back out and split wood with the hydraulic splitter. The wood cracked and popped until he had enough for a week. He hauled it to the side door with the wheelbarrow and stacked it. He put the wheelbarrow next to the shed and went in through the side door, hauling in armfuls of logs until he had built a good pile next to the fireplace. The work winded him and his knees hurt. He stuffed newspapers under the kindling and lit it and then sat down in his chair and waited for his wife to come home.

A little after dark she came with two bags of groceries and as she began to prepare dinner he went into the kitchen.

“I need you to call Suzanne and see if you can find out what’s going on with Fred.”

“OK. Why?”

“He’s all messed up. I think he might have had a stroke or something.”

“Oh my gosh. OK, I’ll do it after we eat.”

He went back down to the fire and rested until dinner was ready. She called him up then and they ate baked chicken, potato salad, steamed carrots, and creamed corn. They drank Kool-Aid. They watched the news on a small TV on an antique desk. Dessert was canned peaches.

She did the dishes and then he could hear her talking on the phone. She laughed for a few minutes then she was quiet, murmuring, then she hung up. He waited until he heard her footsteps coming toward the den before he turned the TV down.

“Well?” he said.

“She said he’s not doing that great. She said the doctor’s put him on nicotine patches and inhalers but nothing’s worked yet.”

“Because he doesn’t want to quit.”

“She said he coughs through the night. She said he’s lost about 30 pounds. She sounded really worried.”

“Did she tell you if he’s had a stroke?”

“No. She wouldn’t talk about that.”

“I know he has. Something’s happened to him. I know it. He’s not like he used to be.”

“Well, you would know better than anyone else.”

“No, Suzanne knows. She’s living with him. She’s protecting him.”

“You’re probably right.”

She went back into the kitchen then to paint her nails.

The next day he called his two nephews and asked them what they thought. They both seemed concerned but not surprised. They both promised to call their dad and to visit soon. They asked him what he thought they should do. He said he thought Fred was dying.

Two weeks passed then and it was getting time to work the fields for planting, to disk and plow, the spring wind on its way, the geese almost all gone from the sky. He drove over to Fred’s on a Sunday afternoon, hoping to catch him in the shop or out in the yard. He pulled in front of the steel shed and turned off his truck. The sliding doors were open in the middle just enough for a man to get through. He couldn’t see any light or hear anything from inside. Just as he was about to get out of the truck Fred came out of the shed, wiping his hands on a white rag. He didn’t look at the truck or at his brother.

He rolled down his window.

“Hope you’re getting practiced up to weld that hitch for me,” he said.

Fred didn’t slow down or say anything. He just kept walking back to the house and wiping his hands with that white rag.

Board a covered wagon pulled by two chestnut quarter horses. A grizzled old man with a beard that looks as though made of broom bristles tell us about the history of the land. He smokes a red while driving the wagon, talking about buffalo, the Pony Express, and the death rate of the Pioneers. To the south, over the Wildcat hills, the ships begin to fire.

We play horseshoes and drink two dollar beers while we wait for the beef to cook. Civil-war style tents set up across the pasture behind us, an army of ten-year-olds camping out under the stars. Coffeepots hang from a spit and roast over open flames.

Ribeye steaks served with all the conservation of an American. It doesn’t matter the size of the person, each plate holds a sixteen-ounce slab of meat. We sit at long picnic tables under shelter and drink red wine from clear plastic cups.

“Last week, in South Dakota,” Sera says. “We chased down three buffalo with four-wheelers and rounded them up. Buffalo can outrun a horse, and this bull and cow and baby kept getting out, so we had to help our neighbors get it in. The bull turned on one of our guys but we managed to turn it back.”

No one has stories like Sera. I make a joke and she kicks me under the table with her boot. After our steaks we eat homemade ice cream cones in front of a campfire, where an Indian-looking man plays an acoustic guitar and leads us in sing-a-longs. From where we sit we see the lights on Chimney Rock.

Driving away from the place, the lightning moves in overhead. I drive slow to keep us from the ditch as we watch the white light strobe in patches across the sky. Above us and surrounding the pasture land and hills. We talk about its power.

Then on to the Pink Palace. The sign in front of the barren town of McGrew reads Pop: 293 but it’s less than that. We drive down main street where there was once a bank, a general store, a place to take torn clothes. And those buildings are still there, but they haven’t been open for twenty years and the town hasn’t functioned independently for fifty. The only thing that’s left is a bar. A bright pink-painted two-story building with neon lights in the windows.

People stare when we walk in. We’re too clean for the Pink Palace, too young, too unmarred by life. I recognize some guys standing by the bar that are in their mid-30s, my sister’s old friends, but they’re drunk past the point of making the connection and we don’t shake hands or say hi. We take a table and order whiskey. Sera makes a jukebox move.

Two guys our age are playing pool. We’re wearing cowboy boots and feel like we’re in the right place. So we put our quarters down and shake hands with Scott and Ira, instantly friends, and while we wait with our sticks in hand we talk about lives, origins, and what we all do. It’s good and we smile at these strangers, friends and happy in this dead town.

They’re good and beat us four games in a row. Around the borders of the bar, the older people look angry and frozen. When I start to imagine where they go after the bar closes I ask Sera if she wants to leave. She drapes her jean jacket over her glass of whiskey and we smuggle it out to my car. All the lightning was just advertisement for the rain and while we drank it had made mud out of the dirt roads. I drive slow toward her house, my tires spraying water like a boat on a lake.

We stop on the road and get out. She walks in front of my headlights and into the ditch. We are only a few hundred yards from her house, and she wants to see her horses. When we get to the barbed-wire fence she holds it open for me like a pro-wrestler holds open the ropes. There is still lightning in the clouds.

They walk up to us as we approach. I count seven quarterhorses. A bay gelding with an off-center white star on his head and white on his nose smells the back of my hand and his nose is soft like a baby. I stroke his neck with my open palm and he bends his head down to sniff my cell phone, then neighs and walks off, into the dark pasture, with the lightning in the clouds and the fresh smell of rain on the grass. Before I take Sera home we make plans to ride the horses tomorrow.

“Idiots,” Jake said.

They followed them into the parking lot. Ethan drove over to the front doors. The car they followed parked—its muffler nearly dragging on the ground. Jake rolled down his window.

“Learn how to drive, you idiot!”

Ethan drove to the front of the building and dropped them off. Driving away, he looked in his rearview mirror to see the driver of the white car on foot and running toward his car with a bottle in his hand. He hit the gas. The driver threw the bottle in a high arc, end over end, but it fell short and shattered on the concrete.

Turning right out of the parking lot onto the street, Ethan stopped to wait for a produce truck. He looked into his mirror again and this time saw the passenger of the white car open his door and run after him in a full sprint. He caught a break in the traffic and accelerated as the boy slapped his trunk.

When he came to the next stoplight he checked the traffic and ran the red light. He got through the intersection, but so did they. There were three of them in the car. Pushing his four-cylinder Dodge as fast as it would go, Ethan sped into a residential neighborhood of lower middle-class families.

Going directly to class wasn’t an option. The driver, Cunningham, wasn’t in school anymore. He had been expelled and then arrested the year before for dragging his girlfriend out of class by the hair, throwing her to the ground and kicking her until a teacher stopped it. Ethan drove as fast as he could and eventually lost them when he ducked into an alley—watching in his rearview as they drove past. He made it to class fifteen minutes late.
Jake drove to lunch the next day and they ate pizza at the mall. Afterward Ethan had class in the shop building off campus. Jake dropped him off at his car. He put on his coat. The sleeve was twisted and with one arm in his sleeve and one behind his back the door to his car opened.

“Get out of the car!”

Cunningham stood in the doorway in a red coat and glasses.
“What? Wait.”

“Get out of the car!”

“Dude, hold—”

He leaned into the car, wrapped his arms around his waist, and tried to pull Ethan out. He still only had one free arm but his feet were braced against the floor of the car. He wriggled his left arm free and got it around Cunningham’s neck and squeezed. It got quiet for a second. He quit struggling, so Ethan let him go. He stepped back out of the car, then picked up his right foot and kicked, narrowly missing Ethan’s face. He shut his door and started his car.

He drove over to class, again fifteen minutes late. No one there knew what just happened because class was underway and he couldn’t talk about it. He sat in silence, not looking at his book, not looking at his teacher.

Then he went back to the main campus after class and as soon as he walked in the hallway one of the guys on the wrestling team approached him.

“Damn, man! You got messed up! I saw Cunningham stomp your ass! A whole bunch of us saw it. We were all hanging out in the hallway on this end, waiting for the bell to ring, and somebody was like ‘Oh, damn! Fight!’ Then someone yelled and a bunch of people came down here and we all saw Cunningham boot your ass. It looked like he really messed you up.”

He went to his locker. While he spun the combination Taylor came over.

“Are you okay Ethan? We all saw the whole thing.”

“I’m fine. He didn’t hit me.”

“Oh. Okay. You’re sure you’re okay?”

He walked through a hallway of audible snickering. Everyone thought he had been beaten-up easily. The day went on and his pride started to get the best of him. He left school with his neck taut, not talking to anyone.
By the next morning his friends were silent around him. As they decided who would drive to lunch, they saw Cunningham pull up in his car. Victor went out to the parking lot and arranged the fight.

The mid-afternoon February sun that melted the snow faded during seventh period. The temperature fell and when Ethan got out of class and walked to his car he could see his breath in the air.

That night they all met at Jake’s. Nate, the only one of their friends that actually had experience fighting, gave him some advice.

“Hit him as hard as you can, immediately. Don’t waste time. Don’t talk. Just hit him. That’s the best advice I can give you. And stay off the ground. He likes to kick. I saw what he did to his girlfriend, I was in that class. Watch out for his feet.”

Jake turned on some music, their buyer came back with beer and vodka, and they talked and drank and told jokes. Ethan was nervous. They didn’t offer him a drink and he didn’t ask for one.

Then it was time to go. He looked in the mirror, thinking it would be worse for people to think he didn’t show than to lose. Jake pulled his car out of the garage. Ethan took the front seat. It had grown cold. He rubbed his hands together. There were five cars following them as they left Jake’s. No one spoke. Ethan drummed on the dashboard, cold fingers making small noises. Their trip was short—the grocery store only five blocks away.

Ahead of them they saw a line of ten or fifteen sets of headlights waiting to turn left into the grocery store parking lot. There were already two dozen cars in the parking lot. They were a few minutes late, but everyone was still there. Jake drove into the lot and down the rows of cars to the middle and waited.  Snowflakes flew like mosquitoes in the lights.

“We can’t do it here,” one of their friends came up and said. “There’re too many cars. We’re moving it out to Lacy Park.”

A thin white layer of snow covered the windshield as they waited for the cars to clear out.

“We’ll go over there late. These people aren’t going anywhere,” Jake said. “We’ll build up the drama. They know you’re coming.

They drove out of the parking lot, taking the long way, watching the stream of cars head out to the park. It was snowing harder now. Ethan bent down and relaced his boots.

They drove up from the west. Lacy Park’s road was shaped like a horseshoe. On the outer edge of the road were six chain-link backstops for the softball leagues and two large dirt parking lots. As they approached they could see that the dirt lots were full and cars were parked side to side diagonally around the road. As they pulled onto the road doors opened and people got out of their cars. They drove slowly up around the crest of the road. Jake stopped in the middle and shut off the car and shut off the music. They waited as the snow came down in big, quarter-sized flakes. Ethan watched out the window as people he knew lined up along the road. He watched in the rearview mirror as Mike came up to his door and opened it.

“Which one is he?”
Ethan got out and stepped onto the snow-covered dirt road—everything except the people covered in white.

“The one with the red jacket and glasses,” Mike said, pointing.

Cunningham stood a hundred yards away waiting. Ethan walked onto the lawn toward him with a steady quick stride, his friends following. He walked faster as he got closer until he could see Cunningham’s eyes behind his glasses. They glinted once as he approached and he said, “what’s up bitch?” Ethan hit him with the full power of a good stride and wind-up with his right hand in the nose. His face dropped back. His glasses were gone. He tried to duck the next blow but he hit him again in the temple with his right hand, then again, and as Ethan stepped in with his left foot he stepped too far and twisted his hips for the fourth punch. His foot slid out ahead between his legs. He grabbed a hold of Cunningham’s red jacket as he fell back. Then they were on the ground.

They rolled on the wet grass until Ethan got him on his back and reared up big with his fist cocked back and the circle of the mob squeezed in tighter, yelling. Then he bucked him off and they rolled again, this time coming loose, and he was on his feet and they still yelled but they couldn’t make out the words. Then Cunningham kicked Ethan in the face. It was a good shot and everything started to swirl. Ethan was on his hands and knees and he could see him out of the corner of his eye, pulling his foot back to kick him again and he felt the toe of his boot again against his temple. It knocked him to his side and he stepped forward as Ethan tried to get up, and again, his foot thudded against his face. They still yelled, and he covered his face with his hands and held his head. Cunningham was still there, with a broken nose from the first punch and blood running down his face. He won in front of the mob and they were all still yelling so he drew back his foot again and kicked but he only got Ethan’s arm. He must have decided the one-foot kicking wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he took a step back and ran then jumped with both feet in the air. The snow fell and covered everything in a thin blanket of white.

Drove down the hill to Highway 26 and turned east at Minatare. Looking out over the pasture his uncle owned, he saw prairie dogs he shot at as a boy. He put on his sunglasses and opened a packet of sunflower seeds, spitting the shells into an empty soda can in his cupholder. He took off his shoes and loosened his seatbelt.

Some of the farmers had just baled their hay, and the large round bales dotted the hills. He followed the North Platte on until he came to Lake McConaughy, driving exactly nine miles per hour faster than the speed limit, slowing down when he saw white cars, or anything with a ski rack.

In Ogallala he pulled up to the drive-through at Runza and ordered a Swiss-mushroom cabbage burger, French fries and a Dr. Pepper soda. As he drove onto Interstate 80, he put the soda in the cup holder and the sack on the floor by his feet. He held the wheel with his knees as unwrapped half of the cabbage burger. The cheese was hot and melted, savory with the cabbage and beef. He was careful not too eat too fast and burn his mouth. He ate the fries three at a time, wishing he could have ketchup, but not wanting to make a mess.

The food tasted good but it made his stomach hurt. As he passed North Platte he grew weary of the drive. He pushed the cruise control up until the speedometer read 82 and drove in the left lane. Nothing but open land all around him. Truck drivers looked at him when he passed, sometimes giving him a one-finger wave. He thought about the people in the cars, about where they were going, what they were doing with their lives. Cars with license plates from places other than Nebraska interested him the most.

The silos of Cozad and Gothenburg meant that he still had a long way to go. He turned down the radio and recited the three poems he knew – catching on parts of “The Genius of the Crowd.” The sun in the west made everything sharp and clear. Passed the meatpacking town of Lexington, where he had many friends, to Wood River. He pulled off at the Bosselman’s to fill gas. He bought a 20-ounce Mountain Dew, a can of mint Skoal, and a packet of Gardetto’s.

He got back in his car and watched the needle on the gas gauge go from E to F. It always gave him a good feeling to have a full tank of gas. It was a hundred miles to Lincoln and the sun was going down.

Later on the street went still. It was after 10 and most of the children were home with stomachaches. Old Man Robinson turned off the TV and went to bed, but sleep did not come. He kept a farm east of town where he fixed up old machinery that he re-sold to area farmers. He made pretty good money doing it, but often it kept him up at night. He would rub his feet together thinking about fixing bearings and painting wheels. That night, in the still dark, while the old man half-slept, half-dreamed about harvesters and grain wagons there came a strong knock on his door. No child could make a sound like that, Old Man Robinson thought to himself. Must be some fool with their kid out too late, trying to save a few bucks on candy. They’ll go away.

He turned over and tried to go back to sleep. But the knock came again.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Deep, loud knocks on the wooden door. The hand of a man, no doubt. Old Man Robinson sat up and turned on the light.

“What do they want with me right now?”

He swung his legs off the bed to the floor.

“It’s 11:30 at night. Go away.”

As he stood up to go out to the living room another knock came. He turned on the light in the hall, and then in the kitchen, and then the light in the porch. He went up to the door to see who it was. But there was no one there. He opened the door and looked out into the night to see the rear-end of a station wagon turning left at the corner of the street, heading down the hill.

~~~

The next day Old Man Robinson was tired. He got up and reattached the wires to the doorbell. It was November now and there had been snow on the ground for two weeks. He dressed, ate, put on his boots and his hat, and drove his white Ford truck slow out to the lot. He listened to old country tapes and hummed along. The sun glared bright in the snow. He was getting old but he still went out to work everyday. He pushed and pulled on that old beat up machinery and he was damn good at it. There wasn’t much that could be made to run that he didn’t know how to fix. He was a big man and strong, had a good head about him, wasn’t quick to anger. Everybody in town seemed to like him pretty well. Only time anybody ever heard of him getting mad at somebody in a serious way was when his renter got drunk on the Fourth of July and burned down his haystack with a bottle rocket. At two dollars a bale, he punched the man in the nose. But most of the time he was a pretty nice guy to be around.

Well, he worked all day fixing up a John Deere 4020 — something about the seals in the hydraulics — then went back home. He changed out of his overalls, went to the den, and ate a microwave dinner on a tray in front of the TV. About 9 o’clock he went to bed. His knee was bothering him and he thought maybe he should see a doctor. Damn doctors just want money.

That night he was sleeping pretty good on account of what happened the night before. Then the doorbell rang. It must have been about 11 o’clock. “Idiots must have forgot what day it was.” He laid there with his eyes open. In about five minutes the doorbell rang again, this time twice. He swung his legs to the side of the bed, sat up, rubbed his knee and then got up and turned on the light. He went through the hall, and the living room, and as he turned on the light in the kitchen, the bell rang three times fast. Then he heard a car door open and shut and an engine start. He went to the door and looked out to see the same station wagon he saw last night tearing out of the driveway and heading down the road. “Hoodlums.” He turned off the lights and went back to his room and laid down. He tried to sleep but couldn’t. He just laid there, rubbing his feet together, thinking about tomorrow.

~~~

The next day he was twice as tired. He went out to the farm to work and fell asleep on the creeper under the truck. He woke up when the bucket he was using to drain the oil overflowed. Man could get himself hurt working on no sleep. He took out the old Ford tractor that had the blade on it and graded the yard to smooth out some tire ruts from the snow melt. He ate lunch in his truck listening to talk radio — a ham and cheese sandwich, a packet of peanut butter and crackers, a pudding cup, and a diet soda. He had an apple that he did not eat.

That afternoon he didn’t feel much like working. Most of his projects were done and the new ones could wait. So he drove around the country checking on everyone. He drove past the Harrisons — they were good farmers, worked hard, but nobody was ahead of the snow that year and some of their corn still stood in the fields, yellow and drooping, too wet for combines. He had a route he took on these drives, relatives he went and saw, friends he visited. But it was different now. A lot of the farmers he used to have for friends had quit, passed on, or moved into town. Still there were new things to look at: the Wagner boys had put in sprinkler systems, Jerry Zeigler bought a new combine last year (though nobody knew how he could afford it), the Steiner family had painted the house — their daughter was engaged to be married and they wanted things to look nice. There was always a small change to observe.

When he made his rounds he drove on home. Same as the night before, he ate in front of the TV on a tray. Sleep took him watching the news. He dreamed of his wife. He often dreamed of her since she passed on. She was calling to him from across the yard of their first house when he woke up. He had all his clothes on and was still in his chair with all the lights in the house burning. It took him a moment to get oriented. “Better get to bed.” Then he remembered the station wagon. He was already in a bad mood from the dream — he missed his wife — so he worked out a plan. He went and turned out all the lights like he had on Halloween and went back to the den. He was too tired to stay awake, so he just left the TV on and fell back asleep in his chair.

Come 11 the doorbell rang. Old Man Robinson woke up and swore. He walked slow through the house, leaving it dark. He put on his jacket and his boots in the porch careful and quiet. Then he went to the door.

Just as the doorbell rang a second time he opened it. It took him a second to unlock it and pull it open. A man in a red and black flannel like what lumberjacks wear ran back to his car. Old Man Robinson went to his truck and got in. By the time he got it started and out of the driveway the man in the station wagon was down the street. “Son of a bitch.” He hit the gas and went down the hill after him. He followed the car all through the north part of town, past the high school, down through 27th street and then south on Avenue B. He stayed on his bumper, flashing his lights and honking, but the car would not pull over. They crossed 20th and then, right after the West Overland intersection, they hit a train. Old Man Robinson pulled his truck right behind the station wagon, boxing him in.

He got out, wincing when he stepped down, and then went and got a shovel off the box of the truck. He took the shovel up to the front of the station wagon, and, like he was swinging a pick axe, brought it down three times on the man’s windshield, cracking the glass. He never looked at the man, just went and got back in his truck and drove off.

~~~

That was the last time anyone rang Old Man Robinson’s doorbell. But it wasn’t the last time he saw the station wagon. About a week later it warmed up. The sun came out — and as it always does for a few days in the cold season in that part of the country — it felt like it was almost spring. The snow melted and the corn dried so the farmers could finish their combining. The old man had just bought an old truck he was fixing on. One of the tires kept going flat so he took it down to the tire shop at the Co-op to get it patched. He hung around the shop while the boys worked on it, talking about the markets and the weather. Then one of them came and told him it was finished and that they had rolled it onto his truck for him. He paid the bill and walked out to the parking lot. A few rows over, toward the back, he spotted the station wagon. The windshield was still busted.

The driver left his window rolled down. The old man shuffled over and looked in. There was a pack of Marlboro reds and an orange plastic lighter in the console and a Pennysaver on the passenger seat. Who is this guy? Son of a bitch. He reached in and grabbed the handle for the windshield wiper and cruise control. He worked on it a few times, twisting and pulling, tearing out wires, and finally it came loose. He threw it on the seat and went back to his truck and then he went home. That was the last he ever heard of that.

They pulled into the yard slowly. People in the country can derive a lot about a man from the way his yard looks. If there are a lot of weeds, then the man is unorganized and lazy. If there are a lot of broken down cars or trucks, then the family is probably very poor or maybe there isn’t a family at all. Beyond that, if there’s anything more unsightly than tall weeds or rusting machinery, then the neighbor or passerby won’t know what to think and probably will bring it up the next time he or she is among friends.

This yard committed all the sins. Kosha weeds had overrun it. They grew over and around two old broken down trucks from the 50s and one car on blocks with its windows shot out. The house was the kind of house that you see in that part of the country. Long and rectangular, laid on its long side, running parallel to the highway. The white paint peeled and three cats slept next to two pairs of dirty boots on the wooden steps that lead to the door.

“Look at this mess. Nice unit we got here,” the father said.

A few weeds and couple of old units rusting in the sun are forgivable. Many yards get that way in the summer. People become busy and other things just seem more important. But what wasn’t normal, what they didn’t know what to say about it, were all the geese. As they drove in a large gaggle of geese spread out and waddled away from the truck toward the house. Big geese, baby geese, white geese, brown geese–all sorts of geese. They thought they were just coming to look at a tractor, but they should have known it from the geese.

They only sat in the truck for a minute or so before a man came out of the house. He looked like a normal country man–gray beard, blue and white flannel shirt and jean overalls. The kind of guy you see often around that part of the country. Except he was a little different. He walked over to the boy’s window and looked into the pickup.

“Well, wha’ddyall want?”

His eyes were red and he had sores under his beard. He spat tobacco on the ground.

“Are you the man with the tractor?” the father asked.

“Where yall from?”

He looked at the boy. Before the father could answer he spoke again.

“Where yall think yer from you kin drive innda someone’s yard and start askin’ questions? Where yall think yer from?”

“We just heard you had a tractor for sale and we came to take a look at it,” the father said.

“Now lissen. You canna jus drive in somewhere like that,” the man said. He looked at the boy. The boy looked at his feet.

“Well, we didn’t come up here for you to talk to us like that,” the father said.

He put the pickup in gear and drove slow out of the yard. The man hollered after him. They made their way back down the valley. Above them, a skein of geese flew south and west, into the sun.

The father shook his head. The son looked out the open window of the truck. They drove slow on the dirt road, rocks popping under the tires.

“We need it bad.”

There was water in the ditch and the silver aluminum siphon tubes sucked it out to run down the rows of corn. But the leaves on the corn were curled and the water did not travel to the end of the field. It was too hot and dry for anything to grow.

“I hope that’s rain.”

The father pointed to the edge of the sky where tall, grey and white clouds floated. They had grown closer as the day went on. The son looked at his father’s finger then at his face. He had a mustache and wore a hat with a tractor stitched on the front, glasses, and a shirt with buttons. The boy wore no shirt and was tan-it was late in the summer. They came to the end of the cornfield then turned the truck around and drove back across the field to the house.

“We need to hook up the baler then we’ll go feed.”

The father had gone out in the early hours before dawn with the swather. The hay would be ready to bale before the sun came up again. They turned into the driveway. There was a white house with dark red trim around the windows. A black dog lay with his head on his paws under the shade of a picnic table on the wooden deck. The boy’s white baseball and glove were on the lawn out in the sun.

“Why don’t you put your glove in the house? Do you want it to get ruined?”

The father stopped the truck by the green tractor and turned it off.

“I’ll drive over and you put the pin in.”

“Where is it?”

“Behind the shed.”

The boy put his shirt on and made to get out.

“Roll up your window.”

The boy rolled it up and the father got out and went up the steps into the tractor. It started and the son walked toward the silver, domed quonset in the back of the yard. A pigeon flew up on the light on the front of the shed. The boy picked up a rock and threw it at the pigeon. It didn’t make it more than halfway up the shed but it struck metal and the bird flew away. The boy walked to the end of the shed and to the baler.

He found the pin on the ground next to the jack and he stood with it as his father drove the tractor up then backed towards the baler. The wind picked up. The boy motioned his father to move over to the right as he backed up and when the hole of the tractor’s hitch lined up with the baler he slid the pin in. The tractor turned off and his father came down to the hitch.

“Did you get it?”

“Yep.”

“Put the clip in.”

The sunlight dimmed as the cloud came between them and the sun. The wind picked up and the father cranked up the jack on the hitch and folded it up.

“I’m going to drive this over by the house. You give the sheep a half-bale.”

He plugged the hydraulic hoses from the baler into the sockets on the tractor. The boy stood watching.

“Go do it.”

The son turned around and ran toward the pens. He ran between the feed bunk and the barn. The black steers were running in a circle from one end to the other of the corral. A cloud of dust rose high above them and they snorted and kicked as they ran. Their hooves sounded like thunder.

He ran toward the sheep pen and the wind blew hard. The sky grew dark. The boy could feel the clouds coming and he ran to the stack of hay at the center of the metal fence. He took a bale from the top and drug it to the spot on the fence across from the metal trough. The sheep were grouped in a corner of the pen like a cloud.

He found the knife on the ground next to the stack and cut the twine in two strokes then stuck it into the side of the stack. Then he took the pitchfork from the stack and stuck it into the bale and threw over half of it. Dust rose up when it landed in the trough. He stabbed the fork into the stack. It thundered above him and he looked to find it.

The wind blew thick dust from the yard at the boy and into his eyes. He put his head down and ran over to the cattle pen. He vaulted over the fence and, running, went to the back of the corral to open the gate so the cattle could get under the lean-to. The father was at the end of the feed bunk by the cattle with the feed truck. It spilled out silage into the concrete bunk but the cattle did not come up to eat. They ran from one end of the pen to the other.

The son got out of the pen as the father reached the end of the bunk. The boy ran over and lifted up the spout on the truck then cranked down the wheel to close the auger.

“Run over to the shed and open the doors so I can put this in. Hurry.”

A gust made him stumble once but the boy made it to the shed where he pushed at the metal door and slid it open so the truck could fit in. It started to hail as the truck entered the shed. The father turned off the truck and ran to the open door. The hail was loud on the metal of the shed.

“C’mon. Get it closed.”

The boy pushed and the father pulled as the hail and rain came down at an angle. It stung when it hit. They closed it then turned and ran for the house. The father pulled down his hat as he ran. He was faster even though the boy ran with all his speed. They made it into the house where they took off their shoes in the porch. They went into the bathroom and could hear the hail against the windows.

“Son of a bitch.”

The boy looked at his father-he was looking at the water on his hands and shaking his head. The father dried off with a towel and the boy washed his hands but forgot to use soap. After he dried his hands, the boy walked out to the kitchen. The table had been set for supper. There was ice in the glasses, a plate of hamburgers, a bowl of corn, a bowl of mashed potatoes and a bowl of cherries. The mother stood in front of the sink, looking out the window. She squeezed a rag as she stared.

The boy went to the living room. The father stood at the window looking out across the lawn and across the road to the corn field. White hail bounced on the lawn like popcorn. The son watched the father watch the corn shredded and beaten back into the soil. The same soil where two months ago he had planted the seeds.

–Originally published in Pindeldyboz

The woman probably heard me before I saw her. I used to drive a white 1986 Dodge 600 convertible with a Pioneer soundsystem and a 15-inch Cerwin Vega subwoofer in the trunk. I was probably listening to Rage Against the Machine and speeding through the Nebraska countryside, late, well past curfew, when I saw her standing on the center line, waving her arms for me to stop.

I remember I turned down the radio and slowed down in the middle of the highway. I couldn’t make out her face, my headlights just lighting up her body. She was wearing jeans and a white coat. She looked about 35 or 40. She stood in front of my car, making sure I was going to stay stopped before she came over to the passenger side. I unlocked the door and looked straight ahead. I didn’t know what to do.

“Thank you,” she said. She was still crying and she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. I reached into the glove compartment and gave her a few paper napkins.

“Thank you,” she said. It was very quiet with the radio off and my small car idling on highway. “Just drive,” she said.

I drove slow, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. I could tell she didn’t want me to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her tears.

I didn’t say anything. I drove on and it was very quiet except for the wind coming in through the places where the convertible top didn’t seal well. We drove for a few miles, past the Haun place, past Kilthau’s, past the turn to the school. The woman sighed and looked out the window, not seeing anything, not thinking about me or the car or where she was at all.

She came out of it when we came to the four-way stop.

“Turn left here,” she said.

I made the turn slowly, delicately. We drove north toward the lake, up over Lookabill Hill. She sat up and straightened her back and set her jaw. I knew we were getting close.

“Turn in here,” she said. I pulled into a group of houses where the Krugers lived.

“This is fine.” She got out without saying anything more and walked up the drive. I watched her for a moment and then backed out of the driveway.

I left the stereo off and drove back down Lookabill Hill and through the four-way stop. I killed the engine and turned off my lights as I pulled into the yard, the only sound the crunching of rocks under the car tires. I opened and closed my car door without making much noise and crept into the house. I turned off the light in the kitchen and walked up the stairs to my bedroom on my tip-toes. I got in bed, and though I was drunk, it didn’t spin. I thought about the woman walking up the drive.

A week later, I drove home from school and stopped at the metal mailbox. The mail was normal—a Business Farmer newspaper, a few bills, a book of coupons—except for a card addressed to me. It was a simple white Thank You card and it read:

Thank you for your kindness and for helping a stranger in need.
–The woman on the highway

“Get the halters. I’ll get some hay.”

The boy walks to the door of the red and white barn. He turns the handle and hits it with his shoulder. The door, warped with weather and age, bows as it skids against the cement floor. He turns on the light that hangs from the rafters. It is dim, dusty, and cool. The cats run for the corners. He walks to the back, stepping over machinery parts and used tires, through junk parts and scrap metal. He flips open a latch on the showbox and pulls out two rope halters.

He runs out of the barn to the pen where they keep the steers. The sky is white, full of heat. He steps on the cement bunk, balancing with the post, and vaults into the corral. In the back his older brother opens the gate, running the steers into the alley. When he comes back, the younger boy hands him his halter – his blue, the younger boy’s green – and the older boys hands him a stick. They push the group of steers toward the gate.

After they cull two they walk in and use their hands and soft voices to calm the pair of steers. Hey boy. Hey boy, they say. Hey steer, easy steer. Easy steer. The older boy approaches a black steer with white stockings slowly, calmly, and the animal slows long enough for him to slip the lead rope around his neck and then he is caught. He slides the halter over the steer’s nose and then over his ears. The younger boy’s sees what is coming and slows down, easily letting the boy halter him. His has white socks as well and a white star in the middle of his forehead.

The older boy leads his steer out through the alley and through the gate to the farmyard. The steer follows in step. The smaller boy’s steer is more stubborn–no amount of pulling budges him. The boy digs his heels into the ground, leaning away from the steer, the rope taut and hurting his hands. It is only when the other steer is out of sight that the steer moves.

Over the road, to the west, past the telephone lines and miles of crops the sun sets behind the bluffs. Big in the sky. They walk along a dirt ditch with aluminum tubes strewn in the beet rows. After they leave the yard the older brother’s steer steps lightly, erect, proud–almost like a show horse, his ears up and eyes wide. The younger boy’s lumbers with his head lowered, plodding, kicking up dirt. Then he jerks his head to the right, toward the ditch bank for green weeds. The boy stumbles from the pull of the rope and the steer steals a few quick nibbles. The diversion creates a small distance between the two steers. Once the boy gets the steer’s head away from the weeds they run to catch up.

From the yard they hear a bark. The black Labrador has finished his meal of scraps and dog food and runs up the road to catch them. By the time he reaches them his tongue hangs from his mouth. Though the sun has cooled the day still hasn’t broke. A dry heat remains. Then abruptly, the older boy’s steer stops. The boy pulls his halter, digging into the dirt, leaning away, pulling the rope. The steer doesn’t move. The boy pulls again, harder this time, stretching out the steer’s neck. Still the steer doesn’t move.

“Twist his tail,” the boy says.

The younger boy takes the end of the tail, a streak of white in the long black hair, and turns it up over the spine of the steer. The steer moves again and they continue on. At the edge of the farm they turn the steers around. Headed back home the steers move faster now, walking quickly, almost trotting. The boys know they will soon be running too fast for them to hold on. They reach behind their ears and pull the halters off. The steers snort and jump, kicking their back legs in the air and then they run.