Kings of the Earth: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

he took a half-step away.

Audie
    I HEARD V ERNON say it wasn’t pixie dust but wires, but I never seen any wires myself.

Donna
    T OM CAME OUT carrying a canvas gym bag that belonged to his father. It was green and it said CASSIUS COUNTRY CLUB on the side and it bore the club’s crest, crossed irons on a shield of gold with a white-tailed deer rampant. The bag was heavy and the boy hauled it that way. Inside it were his schoolbooks and his gym uniform and the harness of thick leather straps and cotton webbing and brass clips and sliders that he wore so as to be lifted up and swung out over the stage. The other cast members, older than Tom and at home in the high school building, kept theirs in their lockers and donned them in the boys’ and girls’ rooms before putting on their costumes. The director made an exception for Tom and let him change at home, which made for an uncomfortable car ride. He’d taken it off in the boys’ room because it chafed, and with his free hand he was rubbing alternately at his shoulder and his crotch as he came.
    The brothers cheered when he and Donna emerged from around the corner. Creed put two fingers in his mouth and blew a salute. Vernon fell to one knee and held his arms out. Audie stretched out his arms too but without kneeling down, as if Tom might possess the power to fly straight into them from where he stood.
    “Hey,” said Tom.
    “Boy, you done great,” said Vernon.
    “You was a regular Buddy Ebsen out there,” said Creed.
    Tom smiled down at the floor.
    “OK, Mr. Movie Star,” said his mother. “How about persuading your uncles to let me give them a ride back to the farm.”
    He tried but they wouldn’t budge. Vernon said he didn’t deserve to ride alongside a big shot like Tom so he’d just stick to the tractor. Creed asked Donna if she’d hired a limousine or some other such transport as befitted a luminary like Little Buddy Ebsen and when she said no he feigned disappointment and said he’d find his own way home. Donna screwed up her face and balled up her fists and told them that they could freeze stiff on that tractor for all she cared, but that didn’t budge them either, so she quit.
    The lot was nearly empty when they went out. The sky was crowded with stars, millions upon millions of them hung in black space so deep as to transcend vision and confound it. Audie looked up and stumbled over a curb and windmilled his arms, falling and falling into the populous sky until Vernon caught him by the straps of his overalls and set him right. Donna and Tom got into the car and drove off. The brothers climbed aboard the Farmall and Vernon pulled out the choke and started it up and let it run for a minute. It shook like a dog fresh out of a lake. They shook along with it and the stars shook too on the backs of their eyes. After a while the engine smoothed out some and Vernon pushed the choke in and it settled down. Sparks flew out of the muffler and scrambled upward into the cold night.
    Vernon hollered at his brothers to hang on as he jammed in the clutch and threw it into gear. The transmission had a kick like a mule and with that tricycle setup in front the whole thing turned on a dime no matter how old and ill used it was. Vernon straightened out the wheel and they leaned to one side and came straight again and went lumbering down the access road to the highway, and once they were away from the lights Creed leaned over and shouted into his ear. “Turn off and go cross-lots why don’t you,” he hollered. “Save time.” He pointed, his arm stiff in the starlight. So Vernon cranked the wheel, cutting north over the outer limits of the big lawn, past the tennis courts, leaving a three-part trail of dark ruts in the wet spring grass. If you can’t take advantage of it now and then, why drive a tractor in the first place.

Preston
    I SAW THEM coming up the road in the dark. The tractor had two headlights on it and only one of them seemed to be working and even