Of Love and Dust Read Online Free PDF Page B

sack, and I knew what to expect later.
    Nobody said anything. Usually he spoke when he came out in the field like this, but this time he didn’t. I set the tractor down the row; John and Freddie got on both sides of the trailer, Marcus got right behind it on the center row, and Bonbon got right behind Marcus on the stallion. The horse was so close to Marcus, I’m sure Marcus could feel the horse’s hot breath on the back of his neck. So now it had started. Now they were going to give him a taste of what it meant to kill and then let yourself be bonded out of jail. They were going to let him know (not that they cared a hoot for the other boy) that he wasn’t tough as he thought he was.
    So now it had started. I set the tractor at the speed she’s supposed to run when she has three men pulling corn behind her. John and Freddie started pitching corn like they had come into this world to do just that. And poor Marcus, withthat black stallion only a step behind him, tried to keep up with them. He did for a while. He did for a row, a row and a half, then two. But soon as we started down the third set, I could see that that whiskey and that pussy from last night had caught up with him. And seeing that he was falling back, the two punks really poured it on.
    “Move up,” Freddie called.
    Before I had gone fifty feet down the row, Marcus had dropped back fifteen; and before I had gone fifty more, he had dropped back that much farther. Now he was throwing that corn overhand, and with that trailer just a little over half full, I knew that was the end of him.
    “Move up,” Freddie called.
    And I set Red Hannah at a little faster speed. Well, I had done all I could do for him. I had tried to bring him back here last night, I had fed him, I had given him a straw hat and even offered him khakis to wear. I had done everything a good Christian (one who had once believed) could do.
    I glanced back now, and there were John and Freddie only about five feet behind the trailer. And back about thirty or thirty-five feet was Marcus. That short-sleeve shirt was wringing wet; that straw hat looked like it was wringing wet, too, though I’m not too sure I’ve ever seen a wringing wet straw hat from sweat alone. And there was Bonbon leaning on the pommel of the saddle, looking down at Marcus. And there was that black stallion about six inches behind Marcus—and poor Marcus feeling the horse’s hot breath on the back of his neck.
    “Move up,” Freddie called.
    I looked toward the front again. Old Hannah kept up her
putt-putt-putting
on down the row like nothing was happening. And those hot, burning, yellow stalks of corn stood before us and all around us like nothing was happening.And that old sun to my right—white, small, and still strong—shone down on us like nothing was happening. Man, man, man, I thought; only you worry about what’s happening to you, because nothing or anybody else cares. And you, Billie, you care? Do you care at all, my little chicken? And how about the one he laid with last night, and how about the ones he bought drinks for on Saturday before he killed that boy? Do they care? And how about You, do You care? I don’t think so—because if You did, it looks to me like You would send us a little breeze, wouldn’t You? Now, mind you, I’m not asking You that for myself. Not at all, not at all. I figure a man with an eight-grade education, with a sitting-down job, shouldn’t go round complaining about anything. But it’s for the others I want it. Especially for the one ’way back there.
    I stopped when I got to the end and looked back, and he already had the sack hanging on his shoulder. It had happened like this. I wasn’t there, now, I was here on the tractor; but I had seen it happen before and I knew what had taken place.
    “All right,” Bonbon had said. “Your arm getting tired. Here, try this.”
    He had untied the sack and thrown it down on the ground before Marcus. Marcus had picked it up and looked