Big Wheat

by Richard A. Thompson

  The work went on through most days and often into the night. Brass valves or regulators on steam engines got smashed or jammed, drive belts had to be re-spliced because they no longer ran true and would wander off the pulley, reapers tried to mow rocks and ruined their cutting teeth or their drive gears, and separators broke their concaves or their drums when something other than wheat was thrown into the works. And there were also farmers or steam engineers who wanted to modify their machines, to make them better or more specialized or just more personal. They paid premium price when the customizing machinist made house calls.

  Charlie made a lot of house calls. He loved not being tied full time to one machine or one operation and he loved the challenge of figuring out why a machine did not do what it was supposed to or did not do anything at all. He didn’t usually know what the man thought of him, but he was determined not to make Avery sorry he had taken him on. And at some level, he was starting to know his own worth. He mattered. Machines spoke to him. They told him all their problems, even the problems that had not emerged yet.

  And like the preachers of the Wheat Belt evangelist circuit, he healed them by the laying on of hands.

  His ongoing challenge was a cast iron bevel gear for a Pitman driver, from one of the many reapers that were everywhere on the prairie. It had several teeth broken off it.

  “Defective casting,” Avery had said. “So tell me, mister apprentice, how would you go about fixing it?”

  “Do we have the pieces of the teeth?”

  “No, but if we did, we probably wouldn’t want to put them back on. If they broke once, they’re most likely faulty iron, and they’d break again.”

  “Well, then, if we have the right setup, the best thing would be to make a mold, using this one for a pattern, and cast a whole new gear.”

  “You’re right, that would be the best thing. The closest places you could get the right kind of crucible steel and a big enough retort to melt it in would be Kansas City or St. Paul. And if you were there, you could just go to a McCormick dealer and buy a new gear.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, what else can you think of?”

  “Nothing. I can’t think of another thing to try.”

  “Well, let me know when you figure it out.” He tossed the broken gear into a drawer on the workbench and turned to some other job. “There’s no customer waiting for that one. Take it as a training challenge. When you get it fixed, we’ll call you a real machinist.” The gear gleamed dully from its home in the drawer. Charlie had the distinct feeling that it was mocking him.

  ***

  And always, his thoughts drifted back to the question of Emily, the who and the what of her, the mysterious foreign roots and the troubled past. And the short temper. Why was he always saying things that got her upset? He could read crooked farmers easily, but he surely couldn’t read her. In fact, he couldn’t even read his own feelings about her.

  Like most young men, he found the whole business of sex and love highly confusing. “Nice” young women weren’t supposed to want sex unless they were in love. Young men, on the other hand, were expected to want sex almost constantly but not to take it too seriously. But in his own experience, it had been Mabel who had seduced him, not the other way around, and she was as “nice” and respectable as any woman he could imagine. And he had taken the experience very seriously indeed, while she seemed to be almost casual about it. Was there something wrong with both of them? And now, if he secretly lusted after Emily, did that mean he was being unfaithful to Mabel, even though she had said she didn’t love him?

  He realized with some surprise that he did want Emily, scars and all. At some level, he even thought he wanted her because of her scars, though the idea seemed crazy. Sometimes he imagined he could taste the salt on her skin, could feel her soft touch and the press of her firm thighs and belly. Then he would snap out of his reverie and feel slightly ashamed of himself. But if she really was a whore, despite her denial, or maybe just a “loose woman,” whatever that meant, he did not want casual sex with her. He wanted something different, and he wasn’t even sure if he could give it a name.

  “Why don’t you just get her name tattooed on your forehead,” said Avery, one day in the machine shop, “so there’s no chance she’ll miss what’s on your mind?”

  “Who?”

  “‘Who?’ he says. Mata Hari, that’s who.”

  “Wasn’t she some kind of spy?”

  “She was a spy,” he said, nodding. “She was also supposed to be one of the most desirable women who ever lived. You probably wouldn’t like her as much as Emily, though.”

  “Then why mention her in the first place?”

  “Fix that goddamn bevel gear, will you?”

  “Listen, Jim, I have to ask you something. Is Emily, um, I mean…?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I did.”

  “Then believe what she told you. You should let people be who they say they can be.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Sure I am. I let you, didn’t I?”

  “Me? It’s not like I lied to you, you know.”

  “You would have. You just didn’t need to.”

  He had nothing to say to that. To get the life he had now, he would have been willing to lie, at that. But if that should tell him how to feel about Emily or how to treat her, it did not.

  Chapter 13

  The Road to Minot

  The next day, the café-tent smelled of bacon grease, toast, onions, and coffee. The first nip of real autumn was in the air. Plates of scrambled eggs and fried potatoes steamed on the tables, and cups of coffee cooled too fast. Charlie and Emily had tacitly agreed to avoid topics like scars, sex, and romance, and they were having a cordial if cautious conversation.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters back home, Charlie Bacon?”

  “I have a sister, Ruthie, who’s still there. I worry about her sometimes. And I had an older brother, Rob, but he died in France, in the World War.”

  “What on earth was he doing over there? I thought farmers were exempt from the draft.”

  “They were. But he was dead set on going. He volunteered, and nobody could talk him out of it.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah again? What does that mean?”

  “Oh, Charlie, you really can’t read people at all, can you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Think about it. Did you leave home because you wanted to go off and kill Germans or contract some horrible disease from a French prostitute?”

  “Why are you always talking about prostitutes?”

  “Did you, or not?”

  “Of course not. I already told you—”

  “Then why do you think he did?” She held up a palm in a gesture that said, “Is this obvious, or what?”

  “My god, do you seriously mean…?”

  “Pull it out, Charlie. Reach deep.”

  “You mean he joined the Army just to get away from my father?”

  “More, I expect.”

  “More?” He had no idea what she was fishing for.

  “I’m thinking he also left so you could inherit the farm. Or maybe so your sister could.”

  “But surely he wanted it?”

  “No, he didn’t. Come on now, you’re almost there.”

  “He didn’t want it because my father wanted him to have it?” And he nodded solemnly, as the truth of it began to wash over him.

  “Hey, daybreak, after all!”

  “And he thought I should feel the same way about it, didn’t he?” Suddenly his dream made perfect sense. His brother wasn’t beckoning to Charlie to come and join the war, he was just telling him to get out of where they had both grown up, no matter what it took. And he had done that, finally. He believed his brother would have approved. But he had also left his sister and mother defenseless.

  “See? That wasn�
��t so far to go, after all, was it?”

  “For me, it was. You’re an awfully smart woman, Emily. And you’re right; I really can’t read people at all.” He got up from the table, leaving his breakfast unfinished.

  “Where are you going? You’re not mad, are you?”

  “No. I have to go find Jim and tell him I need to leave for a few days.”

  “Now?”

  He nodded. “I should have done it sooner, but I forgot for a while. I have to see if there’s a letter waiting for me in Minot.” Silently, he prayed that there was not.

  “From your precious twit of a girlfriend? Trust me; there isn’t.”

  “No, from my sister.”

  “Oh, really? I think I’d like to see that.”

  “Okay.”

  She got up from the table with him. “I’ll pack you some food to take. Ask Avery if you can borrow the Indian motorcycle. It’ll be faster, and he’ll be wanting you back right away.”

  “I’ve never driven a bike.”

  “Can you ride a horse?”

  “Sure. Everybody who grew up on a farm can ride a horse.”

  “Well, a bike is easier. It doesn’t care which way you point it.”

  “Unlike some people.”

  “Unlike a lot of people. You better not be lying to me about where you’re going, though, Charlie, or you’ll find out where the saying, ‘Hell hath no fury’ comes from.”

  “Excuse me? Do I owe you something?”

  “Apparently not.”

  ***

  Avery showed him how to work the controls on the Indian motorcycle, where to put the gas and oil, how to set the kickstand, and how to fix it if it threw a chain or a tire.

  “Retard the spark at least three degrees to start it. Kick it over slow once or twice, with the ignition off, and listen to the tailpipe. When you can hear that you’re in an exhaust stroke, fire it up for real. If you don’t wait for that, it can backfire and break your leg.”

  “Emily was right; it’s not like a horse. It’s like a mule.”

  “It’s just as temperamental, anyway. This gizmo here,” he pointed to a handle near the front of the tank, “is the manual oil pump. Give it a shot every now and then.”

  “Every now and then?”

  “If you’re blowing blue smoke out the pipe, you’re doing it too often. That doesn’t hurt anything; it just uses a lot of oil. If the motor starts to sound like somebody is shaking a tin can with rocks in it, you aren’t doing it often enough. Do that long enough, and you’ll burn up the bearings. You’ll get a feel for it quick enough.

  “This is Indian’s Powerplus V-twin model. Sixty-one cubic inches. She’s five years old now, but she’ll still do an honest sixty miles an hour on a hard road. Don’t try it in soft dirt, though, or she’ll get real unforgiving, real fast. It’s a good idea to take it out in some grassy field or soft sand and deliberately dump it at low speed a couple of times, just to teach yourself what it feels like when you’re on the verge of losing control. You can get a hell of a lot of speed out of this baby if you learn how to keep it just below that point. You want a demonstration?”

  “Thanks Jim, but I think I can handle it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? You always did prefer to learn by doing, didn’t you?”

  “Seems to be the only way I know, yes.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what it is you have to do in Minot?”

  “Not really.”

  “Fine, then. Just remember how to find your way back.”

  “Thank you for saying that. I will.”

  “There’s a snap-brim hat and a pair of goggles in the saddle bag. You’ll want to wear them. You’ll get bugs in your teeth anyway, but at least you won’t go blind. Wear the hat backwards, like Barney Oldfield, or it’ll blow off.”

  He put on hat and goggles, kicked the starter pedal five or six times, and drove off the stand. As Avery stood and watched him fade into the distance, Stump came up beside him and watched, as well.

  “You figure he’ll come back, or just take the bike and keep on going?”

  “He’s one of us now. He’ll be back.”

  ***

  Some forty miles to the north and west, Amos Hollander read the telegram from his deputy, back in Beulah.

  FARMERS NEAR BOYSEN PLACE SAW NOTHING STOP POSTMASTER IN HAZEN SAYS KRUEGERS SISTER SENT HIM A LETTER TO MINOT FOUR DAYS AGO STOP COUNTY BOARD NOW OFFERS 50D REWARD BUT ONLY FOR CONVICTION STOP

  He was impressed. All those years, he had seriously believed Tom was a hopeless idiot. He obviously still hadn’t grasped the art of composing messages for a sender who charged by the letter, but he had done a good enough job of investigating that Hollander forgave him that minor shortcoming. He composed a reply on a Western Union form and gave it to the telegraph operator: GOOD WORK DON’T STOP.

  “But that doesn’t make sense, sir. See, the way it works is—”

  “Your trouble, boy, is that you have no sense of humor.”

  “No, sir. But still—”

  “Just send it.” He walked out of the office humming a little tune.

  ***

  Charlie got the hang of riding easily enough. As Avery had suggested, he took the Indian out in an unfenced pasture and deliberately skidded it out a few times. He also taught himself to do a crude power slide, which he had read about in a Popular Mechanics but had never seen. He found that the Indian had an amazing amount of accelerating power, as long as he paid attention to his spark setting. But on the rough and rutted country roads, it still took him over four hours to get to Highway 83, a raised, Macadamized highway that ran straight into the heart of Minot. Darkness was falling before he had the city in sight, and he went off on a side road and made camp for the night at the edge of a cornfield. He picked the ears off three cornstalks and laid them in a neat pile for the unknown farmer to find. Then he made a campfire with the dried stalks and leaves. It wasn’t as good as the wood in the Turtle Mountains, but it was enough to heat a can of beans and roast a coarse sausage link. He pitched his tent and went to bed. He slept fitfully, dreaming of riding the Indian at breakneck speed, pursued by a strange, black, swirling cloud.

  Chapter 14

  Mail

  A sign at the outskirts of Minot proclaimed that it now boasted a population of over nine thousand souls, making it the biggest city Charlie had ever seen. As he got near the center of town, he saw buildings of four and even five stories, and he felt that he was riding through a man made canyon. He found the effect strangely exhilarating. Downtown, he found a Red Crown service station on a corner next to a Ford dealership, and he filled up the gas and oil tanks on the Indian and asked directions to the main post office.

  “Ain’t got but one’” said the attendant, and he directed him down a wide street called Central Avenue. It paralleled a set of several railroad tracks that neatly divided the city into a north and south side, and it was easy to see that the north side was the “wrong side of the tracks.” Crooked, often unpaved streets were lined with saloons, gambling halls, and seedy-looking two-story hotels. Behind them were as many tarpaper shacks as real houses, and the people on the streets looked dirty and tough. The south side of Central Avenue could have been a different country. Streets were paved with granite cobblestones, buildings were stately and large, and both the place and the people looked prosperous and respectable. Charlie went five more blocks west, turned left, and crossed Main Street. Two blocks later, he was at the building he sought.

  The post office was a large, important-looking building of smooth gray stone, in the Federal style, with fluted columns on the façade and a grand staircase up to the main entry, which was half a level above the street. There was a real concrete sidewalk leading to it and real curbstones along the street, something Charlie had never seen in Hazen or even Beulah. He nosed the bike into the curb, then turned it around, facing out, and put it up on the kickstand. He pulled his goggles
down around his neck but left the hat where it was.

  Parked next to the bike was a Model T pickup, which caught his eye because it was painted brown. He had never seen a Model T painted anything but black before. Henry Ford himself had supposedly once said, “People can have them any color they want, as long as it’s black.” When he looked closer, he saw a gold star painted on the door, and the title MERCER COUNTY SHERIFF.

  He had never met the sheriff back home, but he was intrigued that someone else had come all the way from there to the big city of Minot. If the man was inside, he thought he would introduce himself and see if there was any news from Hazen.

  Inside, the building looked like a big bank, except that half of the back wall was covered entirely with locked brass letterboxes with tiny glass windows in them. The other half had a high marble counter with tellers’ windows, each with its own polished brass security grille. At the one farthest from the entry, a square, solidly built man with a tan uniform and a pistol in a holster was busy chatting up a pretty redheaded teller with thick glasses. If that was the Mercer Sheriff, Charlie guessed he didn’t want to be bothered just then.

  Opposite the tellers, along the wall with the main entry, were raised writing stands. At one of them, a boy of about ten was carefully placing a stamp on a big brown envelope. On the wall behind him, a big cork bulletin board displayed various postal regulations and public service announcements. It also displayed the flier with Charlie’s picture and the bold headline HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

  His jaw dropped. As he got closer and could read the finer print, it dropped farther. He was a wanted man! At a quick scan of the text, though, he couldn’t quite figure out for what. He turned his back to the lawman and the teller in the far corner and leaned over to talk quietly to the boy with the envelope.

  “Hey, kid.”