Harvey Comes Home

by Colleen Nelson

  “Our farm was one of the luckier ones. My grandpa was smart to dig that pond. It provided us with enough water to keep Ma’s garden and a few fields running. Along with the money Pa earned over the winter working in the bush, we never felt in danger like some of the families around us.

  “Times were tough for Bertie, though. With no harvest, threshers weren’t being hired. Her pa had moved to Weyburn to look for work, leaving Bertie on her own. I don’t think she minded—she was part wild anyway. Maybe it was a relief to have him and his mean hands far away from her. But I saw worry wash over Ma’s face when Bertie knocked on our door in the morning. Most times, she hadn’t had anything to eat since Ma fed her the day before. She never asked for a handout. Bertie was too proud for that. Sometimes she’d come with a rabbit she’d snared or a fish she’d caught, and offer it to Ma, acting like she had a whole basketful at home. Truth was, there wasn’t much left at her shack except for a tub to wash in and a bed. Whatever Bertie brought over was all that she had, but it was her way of repaying Ma.

  “Ma wouldn’t make a production of the offering. She’d fry it up or chop it into a stew and invite Bertie to join us. Then Ma would send Bertie home with some extra biscuits and maybe a jar of jam or canned tomatoes if some were left in the pantry. It was like that back then—everyone helped each other. We might have been doing okay that summer, but who knew what the winter would bring, or next summer? It could be us out starving and our neighbors who were doing better.

  “People made ends meet any way they could. Gophers had dug so many holes in the fields that now it wasn’t just Pa who offered a bounty; the government did too. Rumor had it that the Minister of Agriculture paid out a thousand dollars in the first week. There were even recipes for gopher stew and gopher pie tacked up at Hackett’s.” Mr. Pickering laughed under his breath. “Didn’t taste too bad, either. Or maybe we were hungry enough that we just didn’t care.

  “We’d all heard stories about hobos and tramps out looking for work and a place to sleep. Pa didn’t want anyone stealing from us. He set me up in the barn with a shotgun and some water. It was my job to look after the animals and protect them every night. I’ll admit it made me feel like a man knowing he trusted me like that. The twins begged to be allowed to stay with me, but Ma put her foot down and said I had enough to look after without the two of them as well. I think she knew I was getting to an age where I needed my space. Our two-bedroom house was cramped. Now that little Sylvia had moved out of Ma and Pa’s room, three of us shared the big bed and the baby had her own cot. Amy was boarding at the convent school by then, so at least that was one less mouth to feed.

  “This one day, I heard Bertie outside the cow barn. ‘You awake?’ she shouted. The rooster had only just crowed, so I didn’t know what her rush was all about. I didn’t have time to answer before she pulled open the barn door. Sunlight streamed in. I leaned over the edge of the loft, brushing hay off the side of my cheek. General stood up beside me and shook out his fur.

  “‘Am now.’

  “‘You gotta come see this,’ she said.

  “Bertie only had the one dress. Over the year, she’d grown, but the dress hadn’t. It was so short, it hung a good two inches above her knobby knees. Bertie waited impatiently at the door while I climbed down the wooden ladder with General in my arms. We both stank of barn, but no one was wasting water on a bath that summer. We still went swimming in the creek, but now I had to be careful. I only went when the twins were busy with chores. You see, they’d taken up with Herbie Caldwell.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “The bully?”

  “That’s right. Davey had moved to the city with his folks, and that left an opening for Herbie’s sidekick. Millard and Nigel were young, but their nasty side flourished under Herbie’s care. I’d seen the mutilated carcasses of squirrels they’d killed and hanged from trees.

  “I’d told Pa and he’d hollered at them good. Told them it was a waste of food, took away their slingshots for a week, and gave them extra chores. They’d both given me surly looks, but the twins had no proof it was me who’d ratted on them.

  “I put General on the ground and he bounded outside to do his business. ‘What’s the big deal?’ I asked. I could see the excitement on her face.

  “‘I gotta show you. Come on!’ Bertie could run faster than most boys, including me. She took off across the yard with General racing behind. I wanted to yell at her to wait. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet or done my chores, but she was already halfway across our property.

  “Bertie waited for me at the thicket by the stream. Nothing but a trickle of water sat in the bottom of the streambed. The bushes were coated with dust and looked half dead; dried-up leaves twirled on the branches, like they were begging to be dropped so the late August rains could come sooner. At least with the promise of winter, there’d be some relief from the dust storms. Maybe spring would bring a better crop—it was all anyone could talk about. The general consensus was that it couldn’t get any worse.

  “‘You gonna tell me where we’re going?’ I asked. She’d stopped running, but now she walked quickly and didn’t look back when she spoke. I had to run-walk to keep up with her.

  “‘It must have been buried till the dust storms dug it up.’

  “‘What was?’

  “‘Just follow me. You gotta see it.’

  “So we went deeper into the bush, tramping over branches that snapped under our feet. I wished I’d stopped for a drink of water at the well before we left.

  “The end of the bush marked the start of Richter’s farm. They were in worse shape than we were. Shriveled crops lay in neat rows, the leaves crispy with lack of water. A breeze blew eddies of dust across the field. Bertie kept walking, carefully avoiding the plants, although at this point it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d stepped on all of them. Mr. Richter wasn’t getting anything out of his fields this year. All that seed and effort had gone to waste.

  “‘Where are we going?’

  “‘Not much farther.’ Ma didn’t let us go on other people’s land, especially not sneaking around like this. I looked around in all directions, making sure we were alone. Ahead of me, Bertie stopped and pointed. ‘I found it yesterday when I was setting snares for gophers.’

  “Sticking out of the ground was something white. The dry soil blew up in a cloud around my shoes when I took a step closer. I still wasn’t sure what she was so excited about. ‘What is it?’”

  As Mr. Pickering told the story, I leaned in, wondering the same thing.

  “Bertie brushed some dirt away and I could see a smooth piece of bone. ‘I think it’s a skull.’ I stepped closer, curious. Bertie dug deeper so more of the skull was exposed. We found animal bones all the time out in the field, but this wasn’t from an animal. One look at the eye socket and I could tell it was human.

  “‘What d’ya say?’ she asked, her face serious. ‘Must have been here a long time.’

  “Bertie and I set to scraping the soil away with our hands, like dogs. General watched us and started digging too, but we yelled at him to stop. The soil was so dry that as soon as it had been pushed away, it caved into the hole. Under the sandy layer, mud was packed hard like cement.

  “‘We need shovels.’

  “‘I don’t have any,’ she said.

  “I sighed. Bertie’s pa had been gone all summer. Looking for work on the trains, she said. But I’d heard Pa talking about it with the neighbors and calling men like Bertie’s pa hobos. Whole gangs of men hopped trains and rode them up and down the tracks, stopping at towns and looking for work. They descended on towns like locusts, and it was only getting worse as more and more farmers left their dried-up land.

  “‘I’ll go home,’ I said and sighed again. I still hadn’t had breakfast, and Ma would be livid if I didn’t get my chores done. ‘I wonder who it is.’ Of course, my mind went to thinking we were solving a
crime—an unsolved murder cracked by me and Bertie. I could almost see the reporter’s camera flash popping in front of my eyes.

  “Bertie shrugged. She peered into the hole and stuck her fingers in. ‘Look at that.’ At first, I thought it was a pebble. But as she spat on it and rubbed the dirt away, I could see it was a bead. Small, round, with blue paint on it. ‘There’s more.’ Bertie sifted her fingers through the loose soil and found another one. And then an arrowhead.

  “I got chills, as if we were somewhere we weren’t supposed to be. ‘Maybe we should just leave it. Bury it back up.’ I’d heard stories about curses following the dead. Bertie stared at the ground. As the wind blew across the field, a new torrent of dust was kicked up, and the tip of a different bone poked up through the earth.

  Mr. Pickering looked at me. “You see, the prairie I’d known my whole life had changed over the last two summers. I didn’t have blind trust anymore that it would provide for us. I was learning that the prairie wasn’t the garden of Eden. It was harsh and unforgiving, maybe even vindictive. I shut my eyes against the stinging sand and shielded my mouth. I looked at the horizon. If a dust storm came now, we’d have nowhere to run. We’d be done for.

  “I wanted to drag Bertie away. But I saw the look on her face. ‘We need shovels.’

  “‘We could just leave it,’ I suggested hopefully. Jamming a shovel into the hard-baked earth would be backbreaking. The sun was just cutting through the early morning haze on the horizon, but I could already tell it was gonna be a hot one. Just like every other day this summer.

  “‘No. That wouldn’t be right. She’s got to be reburied.’

  “‘How do you know it’s a she?’ I asked.

  “Bertie held up the beads. ‘Just a feeling I got.’ I didn’t point out there’d been an arrowhead too. ‘We can’t leave her like this. What if Herbie finds her? Or your brothers?’

  “I didn’t want to stay outside in the burning sun any longer than I had to. I knew from experience arguing with Bertie got me nowhere. ‘All right, all right. I’ll go back.’ General sniffed the air and was about to follow me. ‘Stay,’ I told him, and he obeyed, going back to stand beside Bertie as if he knew his job was to guard her and the bones. I’d have to sneak back to the farm and get a shovel. If Ma caught me, she’d make sure I did my chores, and that would delay my return to Bertie by hours.

  “The hens in the yard scattered as I walked toward the barn. Drops of sweat trickled down my back, and I thought how good it would feel to jump in the creek later. The drought had shrunk it to half its size, but it was wet and cool, so we didn’t complain.

  “I slid open the door of the barn and grabbed the shovel. The cows mooed at the interruption and I guiltily slunk away. Their udders would be swollen with milk. We were lucky that we still had the two cows. A lot of farmers around us had sold their livestock, happy to get the money now that the crops had been declared a disaster.

  “Other farmers had lost their cattle to a growing pack of wild dogs. You see, the dogs were abandoned when their owners moved to the city, so the dogs turned feral, roaming across the farmland desert. I’d seen them once on the edges of our property. I’d called for Pa, and he’d shot off the gun to scare them away. Mangy-looking things. I almost felt sorry for them, at least from afar. Up close they were desperate and would tear a boy like me apart.

  “I could hear Millard and Nigel shouting at each other from the other side of the house. The last thing I wanted was the two of them following me, so I ducked behind the well and waited until I heard them go inside. I raced across the yard and only slowed when I was hidden again in the thicket of bushes.

  “Neither Bertie nor I were skilled trackers. But a mess of cracked branches and trampled grass made it easy for me to find my way back to her. General had lain down beside her, and she was patting his back. They both looked up when I walked across the field, the shovel swinging in my hands.

  “‘You should have brought water,’ Bertie said. I felt a sinking in my gut. And food too. It would take a while to rebury the bones.

  “‘Didn’t want Ma to see me.’ Which was true. But if I’d been thinking clearly, I would have brought a bucket of water for us to share. Pa was always saying I didn’t have any forward thinking; guess this was what he meant.

  “‘What if this whole field is a graveyard?’ she said.

  “The thought gave me a chill. We could be standing on someone’s remains right now. ‘Don’t you think other bodies would have turned up?’

  “‘Maybe they did.’

  “I imagined Mr. Richter plucking bones up out of the field like weeds and tossing them into a pile.

  “‘We need to dig a deeper hole and bury her properly,’ Bertie said.

  “I mopped my face with the tail of my shirt so she wouldn’t see me grimace. Digging into the soil would leave me with blistered hands and an aching back. We should have been swimming right now, or at least doing chores so we could go swimming later. ‘You sure?’

  “Bertie nodded. ‘This is her grave. We have to.’

  “I took a deep breath and jammed the tip of the shovel into the ground. The impact jolted my arms and didn’t give a bit. I dug the blade into a crack and loosened a piece. Bertie picked the chunk up with her hands and tossed it to the side. A wind blew up and we both pulled our collars up over our mouths and noses until it passed. I kept my eyes on the horizon, looking for an ominous black cloud. There wasn’t one, but the distant ground was shimmering with heat already. I dug two more shovelfuls before Bertie pushed me aside. ‘Go get water. I’ll dig for a while.’

  “I grabbed the shovel back and told her she should go get the water. ‘If Ma catches me, I’ll be stuck doing chores all morning.’

  “Our argument went back and forth. By the time we saw Nigel, Millard, and Herbie approaching, it was too late to hide what we’d found.

  “‘What’re you doing?’ Nigel shouted. His words whipped at us in the hot, dry air.

  “‘Nothing. Just digging.’ Which wasn’t that unusual. When we’d been younger, we could entertain ourselves all day digging a hole deep enough to stand up in. They were like reverse tree houses. We’d use a rope to get in and out, or dig stairs into the side. Course, we always had to fill it up afterward too—that part wasn’t as much fun.

  “‘In the middle of the field? This ain’t your property.’ Ever since Bertie had hit Herbie with that rock, he’d stayed clear of her. He got his digs in with me when he could, but I think he was afraid of her. Bertie wasn’t like the other girls. Herbie didn’t know what to make of her, or what to expect. He’d tried to insult her, but she just shrugged his comments off. The worst thing he could say to her was that she was poor and her pa was a hobo, which she knew was true. Watching her agree with his insults took all his power away, so eventually, he gave up.

  “‘We thought we might find a well.’ My lie was weak. Everyone knew there wasn’t water anywhere close to the surface. The water in our well had sunk so low we had to add more rope to the bucket to reach it. I wondered if there’d be a day when it was empty; as dried up as the land.

  “The three boys laughed and came closer. General growled, sensing my discomfort. Behind me, Bertie kicked a chunk of dirt over the skull.

  “‘What’d you find?’ Nigel asked, coming closer.

  “‘Nothing!’ I shouted. The three of them surged forward and pushed me out of the way. Their eyes grew round as they spotted the skull.

  “‘Whoa! A body! You found a body!’ They whooped and hollered, swarming around the bones like a murder of crows. Herbie grabbed the skull out of the ground and danced around with it, holding it above his head.

  “‘Put it back!’ Bertie yelled.

  “‘Why? What do you care?’

  “Nigel and Millard had started digging like gophers. The soil I had loosened gave way to what looked to be a leg bone. They held it up to show He
rbie. ‘There’s arrow heads!’ Nigel crowed, picking one up. ‘This is a grave!’ That started the three of them dancing and mimicking a war dance.

  “Bertie’s face went from shock to fury. Her lips curled and she glared at them. Then she looked at me. Her eyes darted to the shovel in my hand, a silent signal to use it.

  “‘Put it back,’ I told them. ‘We’re going to bury it again.’

  “‘Why? It’s no kin of ours.’

  “‘Doesn’t matter.’

  “The twins looked at each other and started laughing. Millard took the leg bone between his hands and posed like a baseball player. ‘Batter up!’

  “Herbie stood a few feet away with the skull in his hands, ready to pitch it to Millard. I watched them, feeling helpless and afraid to look at Bertie. A small part of me thought it was funny. If she hadn’t been there, maybe I would have joined in. The bones had been in the ground for decades, maybe even centuries. There was no gravestone; no one was visiting or missing this person.

  “I knew that it would be a waste of breath to tell them to put the bones back. Herbie wouldn’t listen to me, and my brothers would follow his lead. Chances were good that he’d beat me up if I stood up to him. I didn’t want my brothers to see Herbie whale on me. Or worse, watch as Bertie defended me.

  “General barked a warning as Bertie ripped the shovel out of my hands. Her face was like a red-hot poker. I took a step away from her, and so did the twins. Herbie didn’t have time to react. He probably didn’t know what was coming.

  “The shovel must have weighed almost the same as she did, but Bertie threw everything she had into it as she swung at Herbie. The back of it hit him across the ribs, and he went down like a hundred-pound sack of flour. Collapsed right in front of us. I thought we’d be digging another grave in that field.

  “‘Bertie!’ I shouted. She dropped the shovel and looked at me, as shocked as I was. She bent down and scooped up the skull that had rolled out of Herbie’s hand.