Thorne talking like a true ecologist, in tune with damaging practices, proving to me again most city folk don’t see farmers as careful stewards of the land, intent on preservation as well as profit. I really liked when he started jawing this way, so I kept him fueled by talking money, specifically a question about cattle prices. This was for Junior’s benefit, as always.
“Your bull it don’t bring much, meat’s too tough, he’s too old,” said Thorne. “But if he’s Angus he makes for the best hamburger. Get about forty-five cents a pound. Take ‘em right away to the butcher. Now, I reckon the better cattle, your Angus heifer and some cross-breeds, some Herefords, they’ll bring ‘em up to Ohio or Minnesota and feed ‘em through the winter. Add more weight to ‘em and that’s when you get what’s known as your prime, your most expensive beef. When it’s good, it’s bringing about sixty-five cents a pound.”
Thorne took the jug from me and drank until water was spilling down the sides of his mouth. He wiped the lip of the jug before handing it to his nephew, Duke. I wanted him to keep talking about cows, for Junior’s sake. The boy had confessed in private he’d started having serious thoughts about becoming a cowboy. It must have sounded romantic to his fledgling imagination.
“Tell Junior here what’s the best to raise,” I said. “He was asking me about it, but I don’t rightly know.”
Drying sweat had left residual streaks down both flushed sides of Thorne’s face. “That’s hard to say. But now a heifer calf, I don’t want. Try to sell ‘em right away. Don’t fatten up so good, especially for their frame. Too lean. But a good hog, now, that there’s profit. A good hog it’s got lots of fat on it. That way you know the pork, the meat, it’s good eatin’. A lean hog, not much fat, the meat is tougher. They test it sometimes with a probe, stick a long needle at the top of the neck behind its head and watch how slow it comes out.”
“You gonna be a pig farmer too?” Duke had said this as if attacking Junior. I didn’t like it. Nor did Thorne, who threw a scolding look Duke’s way.
“I reckon Junior thinks I knows so much because he’s learnin’ it now, that’s all,” said Thorne. “Don’t be so mean on him.”
“He’s learning all the time,” I said. “Not wasting his days, getting a real education.”
For the moment, this silenced Duke and I was glad of it.
“Right good to learn.” Thorne nodded his approval toward Junior. “You wanna be a cowboy, then be a cowboy, Junior, but you got to learn. You got to be careful. I’ll tell you a story about a cowboy I know. One I don’t like. He lives here in Macon County. During the war, he was away and everyone was wonderin’ where his wife was getting so much money. She didn’t work none and he wasn’t getting much in his send-home checks. She was driving a big new car and always wearing fancy clothes. And we was all wonderin’ how so. Well, come to find out he come back from his service duty with Uncle Sam and he was driving home and he stopped in Asheville at a hotel. He decided he wanted a woman, so he called up and got one sent to his room. Had the money already out and figured he’d get a quick one before he went home. At the door came a knock. He opened it and there was his woman. But it was his wife.”
“His wife?” I asked. I hadn’t heard this story before.
Thorne nodded. “That’s where she was getting all her money. She was a-whorin’ in Asheville.”
“C’mon, that’s not true,” said Duke. “Stop teasing the kid.”
“Is it true?” asked Junior.
Thorne kept grinning. “I reckon so. A man he’s got to learn. Just like that cowboy. Just like me breakin’ my fists. Too much sun, so I got tumors now behind my eyes. And I been cut more than once and I tell you I ain’t felt nothin’ worse. I reckon if them doctors have to cut me again, I’ll run clean outta the country. Go live somewhere else like Canada.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” said Duke. “You love it here too much.”
Thorne, nodding ruefully at Duke, took the water jug from me, but he didn’t drink. He suggested we save what remained for later. Neither Duke nor I disputed him. He said to Junior. “I ever tell you about the time I picked up this hitchhiker once in town on the way back from the hospital.”
“You? With a hitchhiker?” asked Duke. “Was he Paul Bunyan?”
“Don’t be looking so surprised,” said Thorne. “I did. And he asked me if I farmed and I said I did and he said, ‘Hey man all I ever growed was marijuana.’ I didn’t like that but, you know, I ain’t heard of it so much lately.”
“That must have been a while back,” said Duke.
“It was, I reckon.”
Duke looked at Junior and explained, “They fly over these hills with helicopters. It’s amazing, what they find.”
Thorne said, “I remember two big colored boys. One was wearing real dark big ol’ sunglasses kinda like what Duke wears sometimes. And the other said to him, ‘Hey man, you is a cool cat.’ I never heard that one before. A cool cat.”
Duke looked at me.
“Tell him,” I said.
“You tell him,” said Duke. “I’m too tired.”
“I got another one for you,” said Thorne. “You ever hear, ‘bad dude?’ He’s a bad dude. I heard that. I did. Don’t know what it means neither.”
“Cool cat and bad dude are both the same kind of thing.” Duke sighed as if bored. “Not much difference. Just depends on the context and who’s talking.”
“You ain’t pulling my leg?” asked Thorne.
“You pull ours all the time, but I wouldn’t dare,” said Duke. “Hey, getting back to grass. And I don’t mean pot. Maybe Junior should know a little about it before we start cutting.”
“You mean hay?” asked Junior. “I know about hay. Our trailer, it was near some fields. They got big ones out there in Missouri. Use them big combines.”
Thorne grinned at Junior. “That’s right, I know about those combines, but they don’t work so good here on the hills we got. Tip right over and they sure are expensive to maintain. But we’ll be putting up some hay. This is some of the best grass anywhere. It just keeps on growing. They took some from here and they brung it to Kentucky to some chemical place. Told me it was the best they’d seen. They got some seeds from it and now they sell it. It’s my grass, but they call it Kentucky 31 Fescue.”
Duke rubbed out his cigarette with his boot. He turned to Junior. “Thorne’s getting carried away now. It’s just regular grass to feed the cows. Don’t be gullible.”
“I don’t lie,” said Thorne. “I heard Billy Graham on the radio talking about them who tell lies. He was telling about a mustard seed. He said a mustard seed was almost invisible but growed such a big crop. The mustard seed of the universe is what he called it. Just like Junior here. Growing all the time. I should mail some of my seed to Mr. Graham. Some ‘backer seed, too. Seed for ‘backer is ten times smaller than a mustard seed. We’re all seeds, I reckon.”
Duke, shaking his head in disbelief, said, “I think it’s time we get back to work.”
Thorne surprised me, saying there was no hurry. “Best wait a while longer until the sun goes below that ridge west of us.”
The tree shade had finally sunk into my pores. I tasted the dry salt on my lips. None of us were against the idea. I could sit all day in the shade listening to Thorne tell stories. I reckoned Thorne would allow us about three more hours of work, but it wouldn’t be nearly as hot.
“Skin cancer and all,” said Duke. “I get it.”
“But I don’t understand the tumors,” I said to Thorne. “Fatty tumors in the eyes? How can that be?”
“Don’t rightly know, JB. Hadn’t nothin’ broke in my body neither. Not a bone until about seven or ten years ago when they started cutting. I been cut six times since then. Even had a tractor roll over me one time.”
“A tractor?” Junior, gushing, had popped off his spot on a log.
“Reckon so. I was bush-hogging a side hill and that tractor she rolled right atop me and I jumped uphill leaping against the way the tractor was moving. Good thing I had me a roll bar. It comes up over your head to keep the tractor from crushing you. In them days, didn’t use no seat belt. Split-second. Happened so fast.”
“Roll bars should be standard equipment,” said Duke. “Should be required by law.”
“But they ain’t,” said Thorne. “Don’t need no government meddling.”
“But didn’t it hurt?” asked Junior, seated now, swatting at flies.
“Nope. Thing was, the ground was soft where the tractor rolled over and I was leaping and fussing between the muffler about three feet high or so, and the steering wheel, and that was high too.” Thorne raised his arm to show us how high. “Massey Ferguson, Harvester, Farmall, they all got roll bars. If not for that and if that tractor hadn’t of rolled between me, it woulda killed me. But I don’t like government meddling.”
Duke blew a big sigh of exasperation. “Uncle Thorne, you know, it’s all Jesse Helms and those other clowns in Washington that won’t pass a law making roll bars required. Idiots, all of them. They know it’s the right thing to do and still they won’t do it.”
“You talking politics now?” asked Thorne, eyeing Duke. “Don’t make two cents of difference to me. I know Jim Hunt’s the governor. Voted for him. About two years ago he named Franklin the ‘Quilting Capitol of the World.’ And you know we love Jesse in these parts. Back in ’72 he ran with Nixon. First Republican senator elected from this state since 1903, I think.”
“I did not know that,” I said. This nugget of knowledge really impressed me. Thorne was full of surprises, no doubt about it.
“I reckon any politician,” said Thorne, “especially a Washington senator who is pro-tobacco, pro-farming and willing to keep taxes down is okay by me.”
“Jesse Helms is a racist cracker Neanderthal,” said Duke. He spat. “The KKK loves him.”
The mercury spiked in Thorne’s face marking the end of our break and afternoon conversation in the shade. We returned to chopping ‘backer and it was two days later before Thorne even spoke to Duke in front of us. He ordered him to check the oil in one of the pick-ups. Junior and I joined Duke and I asked the big man why he kept on acting as an irritant to his elders, especially his uncle.
While Duke pulled the dipstick out and wiped it clean, he told me, “I’ll tell you why, JB. My old man knows that the acre over at Brown’s place was sprayed two weeks ago, but instead of getting to it and harvesting it, Rod keeps hauling from these places like Wide Horizon so he can be Farmer of the Year because everyone can see the progress we’re making. Thorne, he doesn’t say a word. Just goes along in his dopey way. Meanwhile, Brown’s entire acre means $250 bucks out of my pocket because it gets overrun with suckers and it’s gonna take a week just to cut.”
Junior had been listening intently. He asked Duke, “So, Uncle Rod pays you?”
“Why shouldn’t he? Old Brown’s land is just a favor. You think I’m going to bust my ass for free?”
“But he’s your father.”
“He’s my boss too.” Duke snorted. “But don’t you even start thinking, Junior, about getting paid. Why you think your buddy Lee isn’t around? He only gets paid when there’s enough work. When there’s more tobacco than we can really handle.”
To be direct was one thing, but with Duke it often resulted in blunt force trauma. “The boy’s just asking,” I remarked.
“Whole thing just pisses me off sometimes. Rod and his hauling and Thorne talking like he’s so God-damned poor, but he’s richer than Rockefeller.” Duke returned the dipstick. The oil level was fine. He slammed down the truck hood. “Just don’t take my uncle for a simpleton, JB. He’s got money stuffed under every mattress and in little shoe boxes and invested back into his farming operations. He’s as tight as they come when the almighty dollar is concerned.”
“He’s thrifty,” I said. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Billie Graham and mustard seed of the universe my ass,” said Duke. “Thorne owns this land outright and whatever profit he makes goes back into preparing for the next year’s growing season. It’s all about making money.”
“Then he’s probably smart to hide some,” I said. “I’d do the same.”
Duke paused a moment to consider my comment. “Fewer taxes to pay. You’re right. I’m telling you he’s shrewd.” He faced Junior. “But if you want to be a cowboy, Kid, you’ve got to think about how so much of Thorne’s profits go into maintenance of equipment. He’s got fences and buildings. And fuel, and feed, and fertilizer. Then there’s the veterinarians and insurance and his employees and government policies. Most of it working against him.”
“So he’s smart to be thrifty,” I said.
Duke shoved me then. Glared at me. “Shut up, JB. I’m talking to the kid here.”
I didn’t press the big man further. Nobody with brains would dare do so.
I sat between brothers Thorne and Rod, jouncing along in the pick-up. Dwarfing both men with my wide shoulders, it wasn’t easy to twist around and look behind me at Junior seated, knees up, arms locked around them, alone in the truck bed, looking every inch like a wandering-eyed lad.
I smiled at him. He smiled back. What I felt, then, a warm sense of kinship and concern, must have shown in my sun-weathered face. I think Thorne saw this. I couldn’t hide it. He’d witnessed more and more how Junior looked up to me as he was learning to adapt. The little I knew of his family situation still nagged and troubled me. I kept thinking any day now how Alice or Wallace, neither of them trustworthy or sober could show up from Missouri with every legal right to take him away and there’d be all sorts of drama and tears, especially from Bev who was Junior’s aunt and Rod’s wife.
Rod drove us over a narrow bridge at the bottom of a vale that spanned a shallow creek that meandered through low damp hills. Mist rose off those hills and their green dells shined. In some places, where sunlight coated those dells, it shimmered light brown and golden. As often happened in that countryside, it was a scene of such beauty that it demanded I sit up straighter and take notice. I hoped that Junior was doing the same.
Thorne passed a remark I suspect he wouldn’t have dared had I not been there. “They got pigeons under this here bridge. I’ve seen ‘em.”
This garnered from Rod a look of disbelief tinged with contempt. He asked, “Thorne, just what kind of importance is that supposed to mean?”
“Just talk,” said Thorne.
Could two brothers have been more different? Rod reached toward the cigarette lighter in the dashboard ashtray and lit up a Winston. He cranked down his window and sounded eerily reminiscent of an older version of his son Duke. “There’s pigeons under every God-damned bridge in Macon County. In the whole state.”
“Ain’t so.”
Rod, snorting, shook his head in disbelief at Thorne. I squirmed. A tobacco field and a hatchet beckoned – thwack, thwack, thwack – but if the two brothers started bickering, it would make for one unpleasant day.
As we drove out of that vale, what broke the tension was the site of a one-room schoolhouse that topped a hill. It looked like a woodshed, stood crookedly, straining to hold purchase in the mud and grass as if it had grown there. Slightly taller than it was wide, it resembled an outhouse. One door made of warped grainy planks stood in place, closed, but unevenly enough to prove it was off its hinges. Abandoned and perhaps, to some, unsightly, it struck me as a curiosity that would have merited a photograph if I’d had a camera. It also reminded me of the school my mother had gone to in Danville.
“That there is a one-room schoolhouse,” said Thorne. I already knew this. “I should tell that to Junior.”
“You do that. The kid’s all ears.”
“I will but later on,” said Thorne. “You know, used to be one room schoolhouses all over Macon County. They have ‘em up Danville way?”
“At one time they did,” I said. “Momma used to talk about them.”
Rod glanced at the building. “But I thought that was the county store.”
“It was,” said Thorne. “Schoolhouse and a county store. We brung our corn to them, but I never did like their flour.”
“Cooking flour?” I asked.
“It was a long time ago,” said Rod. “Thorne’s talking about when we were just a couple of little shrimps ourselves, just like Junior back there. Back when our Daddy was alive.”
A sigh from Thorne. A low whistle from Rod. I was confused. I remembered the warning Duke had shared about the family history being sketchy at best. After their father had died, there had been the mother, the mother’s sister, husband and son. This cousin was disliked. Yet Thorne and Rod sometimes spoke as if they’d been orphaned young without kin. Where did romantic myth end and reality begin? They both seemed comfortable blurring this line and many others. How much of their past and present was what they chose to believe versus what it appeared to be or what it had been?
“Someone ought to tear that down,” said Rod.
A blush of carmine rose in Thorne’s cheeks. “No, I reckon not. I reckon I’ll go fix that door. Promised to, but I never done so. But I will.”
I was about to ask to whom he’d promised, suspecting there was a story behind that building. I was teeming with curiosity, but it was deflated when Rod reached over, clicked on the radio and turned the dial until he found the voice of Paul Harvey.
“Need the weather,” he said.
“I like that Paul Harvey,” said Thorne.
“Who doesn’t,” said Rod. “But those clouds east of here. Might have to go back to Odie’s field and clear it.”
I think Rod expected Thorne to say something definitive. Thorne didn’t. He stared out his window. The one-room schoolhouse was well behind us. We lost Paul Harvey’s voice. Nothing but crackling static as the road dipped, rose and we rolled along. After Rod clicked off the radio, he tossed his cigarette out the window. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Say what?” Thorne looked perturbed. “I want to get back to the house and get those ‘maters for Bev.”
Rod kept his eyes on the road. “We’ll check this field first and then head back to the house.”
“Odie Rowe’s ‘backer crop? Nope, ain’t ready to be hung. Just burning daylight, that’s all.”
“But if it rains, we’ll lose it. Can’t have that,” said Rod.
“But I ain’t sure about no rain.”
The clouds I’d seen earlier hadn’t looked foreboding. They were east of us and still moving eastwardly. I agreed with Thorne. It didn’t look like rain. Rod lit another cigarette and mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll be okay. I don’t smell no rain.”
Thorne, looking weary, didn’t debate him.
Silent, spent, the day’s work done I rode along, checking on Junior now and then in the back until we arrived to Shepherd Road and the house and I was standing with Junior near Thorne’s outbuildings. Here, the land behind his house sloped upward toward a line of evergreens that served as a windbreak and a property marker. One lonely crooked building was an outhouse with a crescent moon carved into its wooden door. Another, a tool shed, was linked to the back of Thorne’s house by a scrawny line of gravel. It was on this gravel that Thorne parked machinery such as a bailer in need of repair, a trailer with a busted axle, and a beached tractor sun-faded red, Farmall in white raised letters above its engine. This was used for parts. His functioning tractors, along with shelved parts, were in the barn across Shepherd Road.
Junior’s eyes roamed over the property.
“That’s a Chinese elm.” Thorne had crept up behind him. He pointed out one of the trees. “Ordered it from Illinois. It growed good. Gives a lot of shade. But I don’t like it – leaves are falling off all the time.”
Thorne pointed out another one, closer to us, smaller. “That one there is a maple. And them three together over yonder, are persimmons. They don’t give no fruit. Usually you can get some fruit off ‘em but not them kind.”
Junior asked what a persimmon was. Thorne told him. A breeze rose to sway the trees and I felt bitten pleasantly by an unfamiliar chill. These hills were advancing into fall, whether we were ready or not. After so much heat in the fields, these sudden onsets of colder air brought relief. I felt something else at that moment. New to me, it felt like acceptance. Of myself. Not from Thorne and Junior. From myself. In spite of guilt I felt over my past, I was making amends by being faithful to my dear Bonnie and the simple life we shared together. This work was only half of the best I could hope for.
Looking at Junior, I saw the other half, recalling how this kid often came to me for support and how in giving that support, I felt needed and useful. Outside of my time spent with Bonnie, showing her how much I loved her, I hadn’t felt such a comforting sense of drive and purpose since my days in boot camp hungering to prove myself and make a difference.
“Heaven and earth,” said Thorne. He faced Junior. “Only took God seven days. Don’t seem right that a farm can be as demanding, but it is.”
Evening was coming on. Elm branches touched the maple leaves. Persimmons brightened as if the breeze turned their leaves silver.
“There’s an alfalfa sprout,” said Thorne. This was another plant Junior said he’d never laid eyes on. “Coming up over there to the right of us. A sprout, just like you.”
Thorne sighed, his hands hanging loosely down his sides. He looked off to the horizon to view the black Angus dotting his pastures. I thought he didn’t spend enough time marveling at this piece of paradise he’d tended for so long. Maybe Junior was bringing him a chance to value what he’d accomplished. The thought heartened me. I wasn’t blind either to the light shining in Junior’s eyes. This setting, so peaceful, was sealed off from what the boy had likely found distasteful and damaging in the so-called real world.
“The last of my ‘maters.” Thorne shortened tomatoes to ‘maters, and potatoes to taters. Junior and I followed him as he began walking a row. “They got bugs.” He rubbed tomato leaves looking for insect eggs. “Got to get ‘em off the vine, but they’re looking good.”
I didn’t see any insects. I said I thought the plants looked healthy. Thorne nodded as he faced me. “Should be getting a dozen bushels every other day now. Good to ripe now. But we won’t. They’ll rot, mostly. Too many bugs. You’re wrong. I can tell by the green in ‘em.”
I didn’t argue, though I disagreed. As a boy, each spring I’d planted tomatoes in the red Virginia clay with Momma and her girlfriend Cora, a widow who tended her garden up the road from our place. Daddy didn’t waste time with tomatoes. Just hay mostly. Cora used coffee grounds to fertilize her soil. Her tomatoes had been fine, but nothing like this.
“Why they not red yet? There’s so many green ones,” said Junior.
“Have to think on that. Don’t rightly know why,” said Thorne. “They’re like you, I reckon. Need time to mature.”
Thorne looked down. I followed his gaze. One leg of his pants was rolled up. He showed Junior and me lumpy clusters of bluish veins bulging out of the salt-white flesh of his calf. “Junior, that’s some maturing down there. Doctor says I gotta get ‘em taken out. I told him to wait. Not now, anyway.”
“Hurt a lot?” I asked. The veins looked like fat blue worms jumbled together and ready to burst from beneath Thorne’s skin. Must hurt like hell, I thought. I tried not to stare.
“Only at night. When I just cain’t sleep a lick. Now, these ‘maters if’n they don’t turn red, I don’t worry none,” he said. “Bev, she cans ‘em to make a green relish. Or she fries ‘em up with cornmeal. Just got to get ‘em before the bugs do. Not many, not really. We can do it next Sunday. Clear ‘em all out and plow the rest under.”
Normally, I didn’t join Rod, Thorne, Duke and Bev for dinner, but this night, knowing that Bonnie was away visiting a girlfriend in Asheville, the three of us walked together to eat at Rod’s table. Eyeing his sloped-backed mare in the pasture, Junior asked Thorne if he ever rode her.
Thorne chuckled and shook his head no. “Ain’t possible. Not even a sprout like you can ride her.”
Laughing at this, I counted nine head of Angus and four Herefords that browsed facing in the same direction. My eyes roved over time-worn folds that spilled out toward the horizon, darkening now from its pink hush to a deeper magenta. I felt hushed but also a compunction to speak, so I risked a question that had been plaguing me.
“Thorne, were you glad when Rod came back here from the Navy?”
Thorne paused a moment. I hoped he saw in me a sincerity he could trust. “Worked bull hard Rod did when he first come. That’s how he hurt his back. He was on Navy pension and worked like ten men. No need, but he had somethin’ to prove. This was before we hired you on.”
There was no longer a breeze. Thorne looked at Junior and asked if he was okay. Junior just shrugged. “Thorne,” he said. “JB.” The boy had our attention. “Tell me something. How do you know when you’re doing it right? I mean, if you don’t have nobody to tell you. And if everyone says you’re doing it wrong.”
Where was this coming from? I looked at Thorne, who I thought looked befuddled. Junior sure was in need of guidance.
“Just try, I reckon,” said Thorne.
“But I am trying,” said Junior. “I always try.”
I didn’t hesitate to chip in, turning to Junior, saying, “You are. And that’s all you can do.”
Thorne led Junior along toward Rod’s house, nodding in agreement with what I’d said, adding, “That there, Junior, is some advice to think on.”
We kept moving along steadily uphill and were nearing Rod’s white mailbox made from molded plastic. It stood straight, spotless, not a single weed rising from around its post.
“See that window up yonder.” Thorne pointed toward Rod’s house. “Reckon my brother’s sitting there right now waiting on us. This land belongs to him as much to me. I run the farm, but I was glad of him comin’ back. Reckon I was. Seeing how you asked me, JB.”
“He was looking for something,” I said. “Wasn’t he? That’s what you meant by saying he was trying to prove himself.”
“I don’t rightly know. Seems every man is trying like Junior here, and every man is looking for something. You was doing the same when you started with us. You got yourself a good job here and a good woman in Bonnie. You hold on to her. I know her old Uncle Boone on her Daddy’s side. He’s gone now. Drank himself to death. Went to school with Rod, he did, at Franklin High.”
I’d heard about Uncle Boone, but I’d never met him. Not that I wanted to, given how he’d treated his family, but he was useful in that he proved there was a streak of alcoholism that ran genetically in Bonnie’s bloodlines. Thinking about this, sometimes it felt like a blessing that Bonnie couldn’t have children. Last thing the world needs is another liar and alcoholic.
John Michael Flynn’s novel, Answer Only, was published in March, 2025 by Fomite. His short story collections include Vintage Vinyl Playlist, Off To The Next Wherever, and Dreaming Rodin. You can find him at http://jmfbr1@blogspot.com.
Penelle Magazine 
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