The View From Here

is something like this, although they haven't quite made it to our field yet. They say it's going to be the worst harvest in 50 years, but it still smells lovely.

Home at Harvest

My dirty toes barely reach the warm cement, pushing off to propel the wooden porch swing forward. I pick up my feet, letting it fall back, and the chains creak slightly. We haven’t had time to paint the swing yet, so I can still smell the pristine gold of fresh lumber, although I can’t see it in the dark. I look across the firefly-sprinkled yard toward the wheat fields. They sparkle golden in the sunlight, but now I only know they are there by following the bobbing lights on six combines, humming slowly back and forth.

The breeze brings me the sound of June-bugs and a man’s laugh from the next field over. It’s quiet enough to think here. Daytime heat relaxes a little now with the sun gone, but leaves the air ripe with the sweet fullness of wheat dust. It has been a good day.

The heat was much worse earlier. When I opened the door to go outside, wind hit me with the force of a yawning oven. I staggered into it, relaxing with every breath. Glaring warmth soaked into my back, my face, my tense shoulders, until I almost closed my eyes to sleep.

The dog started barking wildly in the front yard at our neighbor, who had driven up in his old gray Case combine. He offered to give us all rides while he cut our field. Caleb went first, of course, while we older ones sat on the edge of the porch and swung our legs, watching the slow progress forward and back, the roaring machine devouring everything in its path, chewing and spitting out straw in a golden cloud. Four young rabbits and a field mouse darted from their homes right before being demolished.

Most farmers don’t even own a combine anymore; they find it easier to simply hire the custom crews that start in Texas and work their way north. Those are usually made up of the swaggering type, wearing cowboy hats and tight jeans and Oakleys. Some of them are romantics wandering northward on the road for six months out of the year. Some are just running away. Some of them don’t know why they do it. My great-grandfather was a custom cutter too.

When it was finally my turn I climbed up the ladder into the cab and perched on the torn upholstery. We rumbled off. The height from the ground gave a clear view of my "neighborhood." Mesas stretched across the horizon five miles to the west, the dirt covering them just as red as when my mother climbed them as a little girl. The hollow caves in the layer of gypsum are full of stories. Men made them homes while hiding from the law; one of the ranches in the hills still belongs to the Daltons. Now the caves are dens of mountain lions, Prairie Rattlers and Diamondbacks, annually hunted in the area "Rattlesnake Rodeos," where you can eat fried rattlesnake, if you like the taste of rubber chicken. Between Cathedral Mountain and Lone Peak runs Cheyenne Valley, where the nomadic Cheyenne massacred cowboys riding up the Chisolm Trail.

Looking down from the air-conditioned cab, I saw millions of royal heads bowing to their fate under the swather’s onslaught. This was what they were waiting for, ever since they were planted last fall; through their December green; through the sparse rain and the early heat of May and the first regal week of June: to bring sustenance to men.

When my round was finished the field was bare, with only a heavy two o’clock shadow of golden stubble. We watched as the million flecks of light cascaded together in one pure stream from the chute to the truck bed, a pyramid slowly settling to fill in the corners. A couple of scissortail flycatchers sat on the telephone line watching us, occasionally chasing an insect meal on wings with their characteristic acrobatics.

Naturally we all wanted to go to the elevator. Six of us piled into the faded red cab of the 1950-something Dodge. Seats were ripping, smelling comfortably of grease and dirt. The window on my side only rolled halfway down. Caleb sat on my lap, his bare legs sticking to me. Levi straddled the stick shift on the floor and helped Stan turn the heavy wheel; we laughed. Slowly, we made our way to the elevator a mile north, and pulled in line to be weighed, then drove into the dark tunnel under the high white storage bins scraping the sky.

We couldn’t see the wheat, running out like golden treasure from a chest in Ali Baba’s cave, but we could still smell the richness and listen to the rush. When we went back to weigh the truck again, the attendant in cut-off sleeves and straw-dust stubble looked in the window and asked what we wanted to drink. We all asked for Dr. Pepper, and he came out balancing an armful. It was cold and sweet.

Now the diamond mine over my head is strewn with so many stars I can’t see sky in between. I tried to count them from a car window once when I was knee-high to a grasshopper: I think I made it to eighty-seven before falling asleep. If I stay awake long enough I can see the sunrise from where I am. The stars are dizzyingly close, closer than the lights of the nearest town. Eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight. It’s been a good day.