AFTER THE DUST SETTLED (Countdown to Armageddon Book 2) (14 page)

     After the stalks were removed from the first ten rows, he plowed the stumps under, then put the rake attachment on the back of the tractor and raked it several times from one end to the other, to get rid of as much corn debris as possible.

     “You want most of it out of the way, but not necessarily all of it. You just want it out of the way so it doesn’t get in your way while you’re planting. And the little bits and pieces that are left behind aren’t any problem. They’ll just rot and help fertilize the wheat.”

     Linda considered Tom her man now, and she was a little concerned about him working so hard while the others rested.

     He said, “Shucks. This is the way I was raised. It was my life from the time I could walk. And my daddy’s life, and his daddy before him. A farmer’s work is never done, so you get used to working from dusk to dawn. I’m not saying anything bad against you folk, I’m really not. But a city slicker is raised in a different way. You folks aren’t used to this kind of work. You will be, after you’ve done it for a few years. But not right yet. You need to rest, so you can get your second wind before you start the next crop.

     “And shoot, I don’t fault any of you for needing a break. You all just went through hell getting the corn in and processed. And I’m damn proud of you.

     “As for all agreeing to grow a crop of wheat that you’ll never eat, just so you can help give people you never met a chance to live through another winter? Well, I’m even more proud of you for that.”

     No one said anything for several seconds. Scott noticed that Joyce had a tear in her eye.

     Finally, Jordan broke the silence.

     “Wow, Tom. I think that’s the most words I ever heard you say at one time.”

     Everybody laughed, and Tom took off his hat and threw it at Jordan.

     This group of people, coming from all walks of life and sharing little other than a desperate need for survival, had somehow morphed into something wonderful. They were no longer strangers living in the same compound. They’d become a family.

-25-

     Tom was in a feisty mood at breakfast the third day after they’d finished working the corn.

     “Okay, folks. I hope you enjoyed the two days off, and I hope all your sore muscles are all better now. It’s time to go back to work.”

     Joyce was less enthused.

     “You didn’t get a break. You kept working while we were lollygagging around. How in heck can you be so gung-ho?”

     “Oh, I don’t know, Sugar. Maybe because it’s just been me for a very long time, sitting over there in that old ranch house next door. Just fending for myself for all these past years. When you spend some time like that, your life kinda loses its meaning.

     “And then you folks come along and it’s like I have a new purpose in life. I can just watch y’all stumble along, or I can help you. Share what my daddy and grand-daddy taught me. And what I picked up myself over the years.

     “And it gives me a mission. Something I can do to make myself worthwhile and relevant again. Like I have a reason for being again. And then when you agreed to plant an out of cycle wheat crop, to help folks you don’t even know survive, well, that just sweetened the deal.

     “Now I can have a purpose again, and maybe I can do some good at the same time. If we can work together and maybe save a few lives, then maybe all the hard work will be worth the misery.

     “Now then, little lady. You asked me a five cent question and I gave you a three dollar answer. Should I stop talking now? You give an old codger like me a chance to say something and I’ll talk non-stop for hours.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “Number one, you’re not an old codger. You hide your age well, Tom Haskins, and you won’t tell any of us how old you are. But I’ll bet you’re not much older than Scott and Linda and I. More seasoned, maybe. And a lot more experienced in certain things like farming and ranching. But I don’t think you’re as old as you let on. I just think you pretend to be old so we’re more shamed when you outwork us so badly. So that maybe we’ll try to work a little harder to prove our worth.”

     “Well, darlin’, maybe you’re right. I ain’t sayin’ you’re right or you’re wrong. But if I get a little bit sneaky so’s y’all will work a little harder, is that really a bad thing?”

     Scott sat at the dining room table, listening to the two volley back and forth. He was enjoying every minute. Linda stood behind him, shaking her head and laughing.

     Tom seemed to have made his point. Now he decided to get serious again.

     “Everybody done eating? Ready to go to work?”

     Scott stood up and stretched.

     “Might as well get to it. It won’t get done til we get started.”

     Joyce looked at Scott.

     “Oh, great. You’re turning into Tom. You’re starting to sound like him.”

     All of them went to the field except for Sarah, who was on duty at the security console. She was supposed to be relieved at ten a.m., but she wasn’t feeling very well on this particular morning. She skipped breakfast because she was nauseated and light headed.

     “You just stay in the house and watch the monitors today,” Scott told her. No sense in putting you out there in that hot dirty field if you’re not feeling well.”

     Tom started working the next ten rows of corn, cutting each stalk off at the base. He worked two rows at a time, cutting the stalk to his left and letting it fall, then pivoting and doing the same thing to the stalk on his right. Within an hour and a half, he’d worked his way to the other end of the field, a little over a hundred yards away.

     But that was only half his task. Then he gathered the stalks, two handfuls at a time, and dragged them off the field and off to the side, laying them in piles in the tall grass. It was a lot of walking and a lot of dragging, and a much slower process than just cutting the stalks. But by the time they’d break for lunch, he expected to have the first two of his rows clear.

     The rest of them- Scott, Joyce,
Linda, Jordan and Zach, each picked one of the first ten rows that Tom had already plowed under.

     Their mission was a lot slower, but equally taxing. Every twelve inches, they poked a Phillips head screwdriver into the soil, making a hole about an inch deep. Then they dropped a single wheat seed into the hole, shoved dirt over the hole with the palm of their hand, and moved on another twelve inches. It would take each of them the better part of a day to finish each row.

     The plan was for Tom to stay ahead of the rest of the crew, clearing the next ten rows of corn stalks and then plowing the corn stumps under. If the planting crew caught up with Tom, they’d take a break from planting for a day and help him get ahead again. If he finished the corn before they caught up with him, he’d help them finish. He wasn’t looking forward to that, because he had bad knees that tended to get worse when he crawled around. But he’d do it because he was a tough American farmer.

     By the time he made it to the last two rows, the corn that was left on the stalks for seed was dry enough to cut off. Tom spent half a day cutting them, tossing them into the back of a Gator, and throwing them into a big pile on the floor of the feed barn.

     That was the group’s next project.

     It took a full week to get the wheat planted. And when they were finished, they all walked stooped over, like little old men.

     But they were all glad they’d done it.

     “I can’t believe this is the way people farmed before there were machines,”
Jordan commented one day near the end of the project.

     “Yep,” Tom said. “Those were the days of the family farm. Back then, there were no big commercial farms, because there just weren’t enough people to do all the labor that needed to be done. Families had half an acre, or maybe an acre or two. They all pitched in to help, and the work was never done. If they weren’t working in the fields, they were taking care of the livestock, or sewing their own clothes, or walking three miles to the grocer to get what few items they didn’t grow on their own.”

     Zachary asked, “So when did they have time to watch TV, and play video games and stuff?”

    
Jordan punched him in the arm.

     “They didn’t have that stuff back then, brainiac.”

     Tom laughed.

     “Very few places had power. Most didn’t have running water. You went to the bathroom in an outhouse and drew water from a well to wash up. If you were lucky, once a week your mama lugged enough water from the well so you could get a bath, and you shared that water. It generally went from oldest to youngest. The father first, then the mother, then the oldest kids on down. I missed most of that, but my Daddy told me about it. He was the youngest, and by the time he got his bath the water was pretty dirty. He said he never saw the sense in even bathing, but his mama made him do it. If you ever heard anybody say they got a bath every Saturday, whether they needed it or not, that’s where it came from.”

     Tom chuckled as he remembered something else.

     “My Daddy was the youngest of seven kids. Folks had big families back then because the more kids you had the more workers you had to help out. He got the last of the bath water, as I said. His brother, my Uncle Walter, confessed to him years later that he used to pee in the tub every time he got a bath, just out of meanness. That was at a family reunion. Walter thought he was being real clever. But then his older brother, my Uncle Stuart, admitted to the same thing.”

     He drew melancholy.

     “God rest their souls. They’re all gone now. I sure hope they don’t have to share bath water in heaven.”

     To Zachary, this was all unfathomable.

     “What did they do to have fun?”

     “Oh, they found ways. They hunted and fished, and swam at the local swimming holes. In the evenings, they played checkers in the living room, or told stories, or made up a hundred different kid games to play until they lost their daylight. Once the sun went down, everybody went to bed because there wasn’t much they could do in the dark.

     “They were generally tired from working the fields all day anyway. And they were up again at the crack of dawn. If it was a school day, the kids would walk to the county school, generally barefoot. After school they’d get home and do their schoolin’, which is what you kids call homework these days. Then they were out to the fields helping out until Daddy said the day’s work was done.

     “Saturdays was what everybody looked forward to. After the crops came in and most of it got sold off to coops, families had money to spend. Sometimes they’d go into town and see movies together. Movie houses were as cheap as a nickel back then, and they’d let you stay all day long and watch the same movie over and over again. It was great fun and real good times.”

     Linda could see a twinkle in his eye, and knew that Tom loved reliving old memories.

     Everyone else seemed to enjoy them too.

-26
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     “Joyce, can I talk to you for a minute?”

     It was Sara, peeking into the doorway of Joyce’s bedroom.

     “Sure, honey. Come on in. What’s on your mind?”

     “I hate to bother you. In fact, I hate to ask, because I know we don’t have a lot of stuff up here, and can’t get more…”

     “Just ask, honey. What is it you need?”

     “I… I’ve been wearing some of Linda’s clothes, because they fit me when I first came, and I only had a couple of outfits of my own. But now I’ve grown a little bit, and her clothes are too tight. I was wondering if you had anything you don’t wear anymore that you might be willing to share.”

     Linda, Scott’s ex and Jordan’s mother, was one of those lucky individuals whose metabolism didn’t change as she entered her middle years. She still had the same rail-thin body she’d had in high school.

     Joyce, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. She was two sizes larger than Linda, and although she was active and in pretty good shape, she just hadn’t been able to shed those extra few pounds.