Free Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle by Candace Carrabus Page A

scoop. Then, I’ll show you where to empty it.”
    I nodded and gave him a thumbs up. For an old guy, he moved easily, swinging into the seat of his green John Deere with the flexibility of a much younger man. The diesel engine roared, and smoke poured from the stack.  
    I looked the spreader over while I waited. It had two long handles sticking up at the front that connected via cables to gears at the back. A chain connected the rear axle and gears. Three bars crossed the open back end—two with eight-inch rods along their length—a third had fan-like blades. I couldn’t wait to see the thing in action.
    In a minute, Hank came up with a scoop full of steaming compost—the kind of stuff people back East pay gobs of money for. I’d read once that a pile like this could get as hot as one-hundred-seventy-five degrees. He dumped it, and the weight pushed down on the hitch, lowering the tractor an inch or so. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the neck of my tee-shirt over my nose.  
    Hank climbed onto the hitch behind me, and pointed toward the road between the riding ring and pasture. Now, I saw a trail of dark-brown straw and a few horse turds he’d left on the previous run. I stood to jam the tractor into second gear and followed the road through an opening in a barbed wire fence to a field. On the far side, I could see the roof of Hank’s house, over half a mile away. He told me to shut the engine off, and we both went to look at the spreader.
    “Squeeze this handle and pull this lever back to here, see?”
    When I nodded, he continued, “Make sure it hits this notch.” He pointed to a knobby half-circle then led me to the back. Somewhere between the front and back, I zoned out while he explained the machine’s intricacies. He showed me how to set the lever that engaged the axle, then glanced at the sky. The day had turned cool.
    “Be good to get some rain over top of this. Let’s get it spread before it starts.”  
    I hopped onto the tractor and fired it up.
    “Slow and steady,” Hank yelled.
    The spreader started as soon as I moved forward. I thought the tractor was loud. This thing clanged and clanked and thumped and jangled like an army of one-man-bands trying to outdo each other. The pile inside slowly moved to the back, and then, the shit hit the fan. Literally. Manure flew through the air and out to either side for twenty feet. It was fabulous. I laughed, then had to jerk the wheel before I drove into a ditch on the side of the field.
    Off to the west, a heavy gray line of clouds edged over the tops of the trees. Maybe Hank was right. I hadn’t turned on a television since I arrived, had no idea what the weatherman was calling for.
    I’d never been so out of touch, but rather than being nervous, I felt calm. The drone and vibration of the tractor were mesmerizing. And the slow but steady pace—was this the right speed to take life? I could easily view my surroundings at this rate, and still think…once I got earplugs.
    I made a wide turn at the far end and headed toward Hank again. That’s when the spreader shuddered and screeched like a blender trying to puree wet wood. The whole mechanism stopped.
    “Something’s stuck,” I shouted to Hank.
    He jogged across the field. “Shut it off.”
    I did and climbed down to inspect it hoping no one had ditched something stupid into the mix. Good, hot, compost can decompose almost anything. Which is great, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’d want it spread on a field used to grow food.
    Hank joined me. He lifted his MFA cap, stroked his bald head, scratched his neck, then dropped the cap into place. “Probly a gotdamned chain broke.”
    I flicked bits of straw and manure from the spreader’s edge with the back of my hand, wishing I’d put on gloves. Nothing obvious showed in the large hump of compost still inside the box. I continued around the back. Sunlight flashed on something shiny beneath the bottom row of blades. My eyes registered the