The Saints of Swallow Hill(4)

Del raised both his hands, “I was out for a walk, and your missus here joined me, no harm intended, or done.”

Myra held the wildflower to her nose, ignoring her husband. Moe abruptly stuck the end of the barrel under her dress and flipped it up, exposing her thighs.

She snatched the material down and yelled, “Moe!”

He yelled back, “Where’s your doggone bloomers, Myra? What are you doing out here without no bloomers on?”

Myra said, “It’s hot! I’m cooler this way!”

Moe grabbed her elbow and pushed her in the direction he’d come.

He said, “Git on back to the house! Git! I’ll tend to you when I get there.”

Myra flung the flower on the ground, grumbling as she made her way through the stalks. Moe turned to Del. He stared at him long and hard, and Del had the feeling he was contemplating his next move. He couldn’t be certain of what Moe had seen or not, but the other man’s countenance suggested it was more than Del wanted. Del started to speak, only Moe turned away and started after Myra.

Over his shoulder, Moe said, “Tomorrow, I want you working the grain bins.”

Del rubbed his forehead and worried over the job. He could set plants, sucker, and hand tobacco, pull corn, but working the grain bins? It was dangerous if you had to go inside them.

He couldn’t refuse unless he wanted to lose this job, so he said, “Okay.”

Back at his shanty, he filled his wash bowl, splashed his face, neck, and forearms. He rummaged around for what he might eat, only to settle for a can of beans, his appetite gone. He started to brew some coffee, but his last bit was running low and it was hard to come by. Rationing was happening all over, and stores couldn’t hardly keep sugar, meat, fish, eggs, cheese, and real coffee on shelves. Nowadays it was the chicory kind. He went on the porch, spooned beans in his mouth, chewed slow, and thought. He could hear the murmur of his neighbors’ voices, the clanging of pots, and he caught the smell of something frying. Out of the three women, he wished it had been one of the other husbands who’d caught him. Not Moe Sutton. After he’d eaten, he pulled out Melody and tried tooting out a tune. Even that didn’t help his jangly nerves.

The next morning, Del joined a couple new men he’d not met before at the big house. Thomas Wooten, “Woot” for short, introduced himself as Moe Sutton’s repairman. Any farm equipment broke down, he was the one to fix it. He bragged about how he kept everything repaired, wheels oiled, sheds restored like new, fences mended, anything to do with wood or engines, he was Moe’s man. Hicky Albright rolled his eyes.

He said, “You got it easy. Try working them damn chicken houses. He got near about four hundred birds, and I can’t get the smell off’n me.”

They stood with Del in Moe’s backyard, smoking, flicking ash, getting acquainted. Moe came out the door, biscuit filled with sausage in one hand, cigar in the other.

He pointed at them and said, “Let’s go.” To Woot and Hicky, he said, “Y’all shovel.” To Del, he said, “You, you get to walk down the grain.”

His face, cunning and shrewd, made Del’s innards shrivel. Everyone made their way to the bins, shovels and picks over shoulders, the early morning already warm as the rising sun broke over the horizon. Moe had three circular corrugated steel structures about twenty-four feet tall, with the name BUTLER painted in a faded blue near the top. They appeared harmless, but anybody who’d ever done farm work knew they could be a death trap. Del stared at them. Three bins, one for each woman he’d cheated with here. A door located at the bottom would be opened to allow grain to spill out once he’d loosened up the corn. Woot and Hicky went and stood by the door of the first one. A 1928 Chevy truck with a wood bed built on the back sat nearby to shovel corn into once it was free and flowing. Del’s job was to go inside and as Moe said, walk it down, which sounded simple but wasn’t.

Del picked up a shovel and went to the ladder attached on the side near the door and stared up. He’d farmed in some capacity the past several years. None of it was easy. Most of it was hard. All of it was dangerous, he reckoned, to some degree. This job, though. He’d known a feller who suffocated when he sank in the grain to his chest. It wouldn’t necessarily happen to him, it was only a possibility. With this encouraging thought in mind, he gripped the shovel and began ascending the ladder. Moe followed on his heels.

Del said, “When’s the last time corn got taken from this bin?”

“A while.”

He worried over this. The corn was likely moldy, stuck together. When he got to the top, he had to yank a couple of times to pull the trap door open. He looked inside. The bin was more than half full. By Del’s calculation, there was at least a fifteen-foot depth of hardened corn kernels.

Moe, several rungs below him, said, “Git on in there.”

“You got a rope, or something I can tie off to the ladder?”

“Ain’t got no rope.”

“What if I step somewhere and sink, what am I to grab a hold of?”

Moe was direct. “Best start praying, I reckon. Now move.”

Del stuck a foot into the hole, searching, and finding the top rung of the ladder inside. He lifted his other leg over and in, and then lowered himself so he stood on the last rung still above the corn. After letting his eyes adjust, he noted the grain around the perimeter was higher, with a gradual slope that dipped in the middle, shaping the corn like a cone. He eased one foot onto the surface, then the other, and sank to his ankles. He gripped the rung, afraid to let go.