The Farmer's Son

Chapter 8 Shot Heard Across the Farm

In the golden rays of late afternoon, he walked the cornfields. Each step shifted the earth beneath his booted feet, releasing the smell of dirt and vegetation. Stretching out a gloved hand, he grazed the shoulder high rows, and the healthy stalks sprung back upright in his wake with a rustle of leaves. Dust swirled into the still air, floating almost ethereally in slanting beams of sunlight, before settling on his shirt and sweat dampened skin. Row after row, he walked with measured steps the slightly curving path, following the gentle swell and dip of the ground.

After so many months away, Alan always felt disconnected when he returned home, but once in the field, it was like he'd never left. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back, letting the sun hit his face under the brim of his straw hat.

A gentle rustle of corn came as someone walked in the next row, falling into step with him. Just like he didn't need to open his eyes to see where he was going, he also didn't need to open them to know who was beside him.

"What's she saying, son?" came the deep, reserved voice over the rustling of corn.

Alan smiled. When his father spoke like that, it was the corn itself speaking. "She's saying it's going to be a good season."

Noah made a light sound in his throat. "Good. You finally learned to listen."

Alan chuckled. "Jealous?" he asked, squinting at the man with one eye.

"Proud."

Caught off guard, Alan turned to look at his father, who walked with his head down, the brim of his straw hat shadowing his face. Such declarations were not his style. Even more unlike him, Alan saw a smile on the usually stoic lips.

"The house gets empty without you," Noah said, again unexpectedly. Looking up at the brilliant green field, he squinted into the sun. "Without both of you," he added quietly.

Father and son fell into silence at the invocation of the absent mother, her memory hanging between them like the chaff in the sunlight, beautiful, but choking. While they could remember her with a smile now, it was not long before the pain of loss rose in their chests.

"You always have Bear," Alan said, clearing his throat.

"That dog wonders more than Larry's glass eye," Noah said gruffly, making Alan laugh. Picking a leaf, he held it, running his callused fingers over the crisp green surface, reading the tiny veins in the membrane the way a palm reader read a hand. "About ready," came Noah's voice, deep and quiet under the rustling corn. "And not ready at all."

Alan was aware his father was no longer talking about corn, if he ever was. "I think you know how to grow 'em by now," he said, casting a squinting gaze across the row. "Son and corn alike."

Noah grunted and chuckled, a deep sound from his chest. "Leave the manure on the fields where it belongs," he said, pushing the corn at his son so that chaff flew in his direction, and making the young man laugh. "You always did lay it on too thick."

"I know what you taught me," Alan said, laughing and waving his hands to clear the air.

"You been learning other things, too," Noah said, his voice suddenly dark.

Alan lowered his gaze, letting his hat shadow his own complicated expression. Soon enough it would be harvesting time, and soon after that, the end of summer. Soon after that, Alan would head back to the subsidiary.

"I'm learning, Pa," he said. "For us, for the farm. They have new ways of doing things—"

"Our ways have served us for generations," Noah said firmly. "They're what put food on the table of millions in this country, they're—"

"They're what drove Mr. and Mrs. Dalton off their land," Alan shot back.

"You've got that part right," Noah said darkly.

Alan took a deep breath, trying to keep his cool. "The companies are willing to share what they know, so why shouldn't we—"

"For what price?" Noah cut him off. "Fifty percent? A hundred? Anyone who uses their ways is getting into bed with the devil."

By this point they'd circled back to the house, stepping out of the rows and into the clearing in front of the front porch. Ray, who'd heard them before he saw them, looked up from where he was painting the porch railings. Then a new sound came, of an engine, and they all turned to watch a large, black SUV come up the drive in a small cloud of dust. It pulled to a smooth stop in front of the house, not far from Noah and Alan.

The door opened, and a man in a dark green windbreaker with a logo on the chest stepped out, wearing shades and holding a tablet. "Mr. Walker?" he called to Noah. "I'm from AgraGen. My name is—"

No one found out what his name was. For Noah marched right past his extended arm, into the house, banging the screen door behind him.

"Was it something I said?" the man asked.

"I'm sorry," Alan said. "I'm Alan Walker, how can I—" He and the man reached out to shake hands, but before they could, the screen door on the house banged again, and Noah stood holding a sawed-off shotgun.

"You get away from my son!" Noah called loudly.

Dropping the paintbrush in his hand, Ray automatically ducked as Noah cocked the gun.

"Pa!" Alan yelled, moving quickly towards his father and in front of the company man, who, in his good sense, moved hastily backwards towards his car.

"I'm here about the Dalton land," the man called gamely from behind his open car door. "We understand you've taken ownership of it, Mr. Walker, and—"

"What?" Alan said, turning to look at the man, then at his father, eyes wide and stunned. "You bought the Dalton farm?"

"I couldn't let 'em take it," Noah said, his voice deep and tight. "They've taken enough from us."

"Pa, how could you do that?"

"That's a family-owned farm, and a family-owned farm it will stay, and they'll take it over my dead body!" He lifted the gun and aimed it at the man. "Get off my land, and the land of my friends, and don't ever show your face here again!"

"I can see you two need to talk," the man said. "I'll just leave my card and—"

BANG!

Dust pitched up near the man's feet. He dropped his card, jumped in the car, and it reversed in a cloud of dust, all the way up the drive.

"Pa!" Alan yelled, on the porch and getting right in front of his father, ignoring the smoking gun between them. "When were you going to tell me you bought the Dalton farm?"

"I'm telling you now," Noah said, his voice low and slow.

"We can't afford another farm!" Alan yelled.

"We'll make do!" Noah yelled back. "We always have before."

He turned on his heel and went back inside, the screen door banging for a third time in his wake. Ray, not much use in this family dispute, stood to the side, watching Alan's hands curl into fists at his side. The suntanned face screwed up in anger and frustration, the young man turned on his heel and stomped towards the garden, ripping the straw hat from his head as he walked.

Ray inhaled deeply, then let it out. Standing alone on the porch with the ringing of angry voices in his ears and the smell of gunpowder in his nose, he wasn't sure which Walker to follow, or even if he should. Bending down to pick up the shotgun shell, Ray jumped as Noah suddenly came back out of the house, banging the screen door for a fourth time. The man strode past him without a word, down the porch steps, into the big red truck, and drove away in his own cloud of dust.

In the swirling dust, Ray noticed something white. Going down off the porch, he picked up the company card, now with a bold tire tread stamped across it. He glanced back at the garden, where he could hear an angry racket from Alan. Probably best to let him cool off, first, Ray thought. He tucked the card and the shotgun shell into his back pocket and went back to his painting.