Free Bone Coulee by Larry Warwaruk Page A

special.”
    “I was wondering if you can work down the Narrow-leaved Hawk’s Beard on the Benson half? I’ve got to get at the lentils up home. Turn the swaths to dry them out. If I don’t, the lentils will mould. Never thought I’d see the day we’d have too much rain.”
    “You want me to run your new outfit?”
    “I started this morning. Made two rounds, then hit a rock and busted the frame on the cultivator. Had to bring it home to weld. When you come out later this afternoon I’ll show you the controls. They’re a bit complicated, but I’ll write out the instructions for you.”
    When Mac got married, with his father’s help, he bought the Harrington farm where Lee and Darlene now live. Tall elms line each side of the lane all the way up to the barn. And what a barn! One thing the Englishmen did was build barns. This one still stands up straight and tall as the day it was built.
    It seems that old Harrington must have designed the yard to suit the barn. The tree-lined lane leads to a ramp right up to the broad doors, at one time the entry for a team of horses to pull a hayrack into the loft.
    Three vents on the hip roof rise like steeples on a church, each one topped with a black horse weather vane. Proud, is what you’d call this barn, from a proud time. Proud, like Mac’s first tractor, his John Deere D, stored in one of the empty stalls. He restored it himself, and he takes it out every fall to drive in the Duncan Harvest Fair parade. These old tractors are more like icons now, things to be polished up and worshipped.
    Mac has made sure to arrive early enough for his lesson on operating the 9420 John Deere. Lee’s at the fuel tanks, loading the tractor up with two hundred gallons of diesel. Mac’s old D takes thirty.
    “I’ll finish this,” Lee says. “Then I’ll have you drive it over to the shed to hook on to the cultivator. See how you make out. Just climbing up into the cab might be chore enough for you.”
    “You want me to work that field tomorrow or not?” Mac says, grinning. He’s used to his son’s Irish wit, inherited from his mother. He’s got the height and lean features of his mother too. Peggy used to dress like a cowboy movie queen, like Dale Evans. And here’s Lee: cowboy boots, blue jeans, silver buckle as big and round as a saucer, plaid shirt, handkerchief around his neck, black hat on his balding head. Not even fifty, and he’s got much less hair than his father. Less hair and more stress, when you have to pay a quarter of a million dollars for a tractor.
    Just as Lee hangs up the storage tank hose, a semi drives up the lane with its air horn blasting.
    “Looks like Garth’s made it home,” Lee says.
    He’s the real cowboy, and he drives his truck as if he’s mounted on a quarter-horse stallion.
    “Hi there, Gramps!” he says, bounding out of the truck and waving his hat.
    “We’ll hook on later,” Lee says. “Let’s go up to the house and clean up for supper.”
    Darlene keeps a spotless house, much as Peggy did. She meets them outside at the porch steps.
    “Boots off!”
    Just like Peggy, Mac’s Irish washerwoman. Darlene is forever offering to come in to clean his house and wash his clothes, as if Peggy left her with those instructions. Maybe she did. In her white denim jeans and red silk shirt, the mother’s dressed for her son’s birthday. She doesn’t miss a trick, right down to the silver buckle at her waist.
    Garth automatically sets his boots on the boot rack, and hangs his hat beside his dad’s, on the antlers of the deer head mounted above the kitchen entry. Unlike his father, Garth has a full head of coal-black hair, and a hang-down moustache that he must be fertilizing to make it grow. A lump of chewing tobacco shows in his cheek.
    “What’s for supper, Mom?”
    “Go wash your hands, and get rid of that wad in your mouth.”
    “After supper Dad’s driving the outfit to the Benson land,” Lee says. “He needs the practice. So you