Of Love and Dust Read Online Free Page B

headland, then I swung Red Hannah down a set of rows. John and Freddie took the two side rows and gave Marcus the flat row in the middle. That was the easiest row because the corn was already down and all you had to do was walk there and jerk it off the stalk. But even giving Marcus the easiest row, they knew they could kill him off any time they wanted to. They started slow, just talking and giggling between the two of them. “Child, you know this; child, you know that—” and then all of a sudden they would bust out laughing at something that only they knew about. But Marcus, back of the trailer in his short-sleeve green shirt and brown pants, wasn’t saying a thing. The hat and the long-sleeve khaki shirt I had brought out the house were still in the trailer where I had thrown them.
    “Just wait,” I thought. “Just wait. Before this day is over—hah …”
    Marcus stuck pretty close with John and Freddie on the first trailer, but soon as we had loaded it and started on the second one, I could see them picking up speed. They weren’t going fast—no, that was coming later this evening when Bonbon was out there. Right now they were going about three-fourths, the way a good pitcher go in the sixth or seventh inning when he’s leading by a comfortable amount of runs. But even that three-fourths speed was starting to tell on Marcus. Already he was starting to jerk on one ear of corn two or three times before he broke it from the stalk. Couple times there he dropped so far back, he couldn’t even reach the trailer throwing the corn overhand.
    The best way to pull corn is snatch it with one jerk and flip it underhand into the trailer or the wagon. But when you get so far back where you can’t go underhand, then you got to go overhand, and that’s when it start telling on you.Because to draw that corn back over your shoulder and throw it like that, you use twice the energy. And I don’t care how good you are, how strong you are, by the time you go a day like that it’s going to be telling on you. So it was like that with Marcus. Each time he threw it from over his shoulder, it took just a little bit more from what he was going to need the rest of the day. And that whiskey he had drunk last night and that pussy he had wallowed in last night, and that no-sleeping and that no-eating and that short-sleeve green shirt and them thin, brown pants and that white, hot bitch way up in the sky were all working together against him to make matters worse. Every now and then I stopped when he got too far back. While I’d be waiting for him to catch up, John and Freddie would get together on the shady side of the trailer and talk and giggle and slap each other on the back like they hadn’t seen each other in about ten years. Then soon as he had caught up, they would move back on their rows, never giving him one second of rest. By the time we had finished that second load, Marcus was so tired I thought he was going to drop before he got up on the trailer. But he made it, and we hooked up the other trailer and started toward the front for dinner.

6
 
    When we came up to the house, I told Marcus to go in and eat and rest himself. He hopped off the tractor and staggered toward the gate. I went up the quarter and let John and Freddie off; then I took the two loads of corn up to the yard. The other two trailers were empty as usual. After I had parked the loaded ones in front of the crib and had fueled and watered Red Hannah for this evening, I hooked up the two empty ones and started on back down the quarter. Marcus was sitting on the gallery when I came to the house.
    “You ate?” I asked him.
    “I ain’t got nothing in there.”
    “I got enough,” I said.
    “I don’t want nothing for free.”
    “It’s not free,” I said. “You can pay me back later.”
    I went in and washed my face and hands and warmed up some beans and rice I had in the icebox. Then I dished up two platefuls and set one plate on the table, and I sat