“Yeah,” Sarah said into the receiver, “we’ll talk more about it tomorrow, ‘kay? The show’s about to start.”
“All right.” Annie fidgeted on the other end of the line. “You’re lucky our show’s coming on.”
“Later, chick.”
“Bye,” Annie said, and then the line clicked to a dial tone.
Sarah double-checked the apartment one last time before settling in for some mindless entertainment. Yup, chores done. Her eyes wandered over the worn journal resting sideways on the faux wooden surface of the table.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to do a little homework while I watch.”
She cracked the book to the entry in which she had stopped. The acrid smell of its faded pages transported her back to another time.
‘I’ve been working on Buck’s farm for several weeks now. Me and Lily have hit it off pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’ve had to take to sneakin’ around behind her old man’s back to see each other.’
Noah slapped the dust out of the leg of his coveralls as he strode into Rich’s space in the bunkhouse.
“You wanted to see me?”
Rich’s head of sweat-soaked red spikes bobbed. “There’s a small job over in the barn that needs done.” He poked a stubby finger toward the tool room. “Grab a toolbox and follow me.”
“Yes, sir.” Noah took a toolbox by its long wooden handle and trailed behind his foreman into the humid summer day.
He and Rich strode into the inviting shade of the rickety barn. The smell of diesel and straw billowed out when they opened the towering doors.
“Over this way,” Rich said, leading them around the old field tractor.
A huge row of razor-sharp wheels startled Noah as he rounded the corner of the machine behind his boss. Bands of daylight danced on their silver teeth from between the boards on the walls.
“That’s one of the tillers,” Rich explained. “If you stick it out here long enough, you’ll get to see it in action.”
Noah followed him into a dark corner of the structure. He heard Rich shuffle and clang into a few small things before more daylight flooded in through the rear barn entrance. Rich tugged the brim of his cowboy hat down and pointed toward the nearest wall.
“These boards here,” he said, “all need to come out.”
Noah strode over and set his toolkit down below the indicated job.
“See there where these ones are bendin’ and bowin’ out?”
Noah nodded his red curls.
“Just use your claw hammer to yank ‘em out,” Rich bent over into the shadowy corner and came back with a handful of fresh boards, “and nail these ones in.”
Noah reached down into the long wooden kit and produced the requested tool.
“Once you’re done here,” Rich said, hobbling out the back doors, “head on down to the hay fields. It’ll be gettin’ on to lunchtime by then, I reckon.”
Noah dug the claws of the hammer behind the highest board and forces the handle upward. “I will.”
Once the stout foreman had gone, Noah went to work on the chore at hand. Shoot, my pa would’ve wanted something like this done in fifteen minutes. I can definitely stretch the time in the shade to an hour. The first warped board popped out with little resistance. A small shower of dust blanketed Noah’s chest and shoulders.
“Looks good on you,” a familiar feminine voice said from behind him.
Noah jumped at the sudden intrusion.
“Easy.” Lily sauntered over to him. “I won’t bite unless you ask me to.”
“What are you doin’ in here?” He smiled and wiped his hands on the lap of his coveralls. “Your pa’s in the house just across the way.”
Lily leaned against the wall next to him. “I know. I haven’t seen you all mornin’.”
He set the hammer in behind the next board and pushed on the handle. “I’ve been over in the hay fields forkin’ straw.”
“Oh.” She walked behind him. “Has anyone ever told you that it’s not polite to keep a girl waiting?”
Her willowy fingers slid down his chest toward his groin. The touch of her breath on his neck intoxicated him.
Lily stuck her hands in his front pockets and tugged him backward into one of the stalls. “Time for a little break.”
The hammer hung between the boards as he collapsed into a mound of hay in the empty horse stall next to Lily.
She rolled off Noah and lay next to him in the hay. Beads of perspiration coated the light freckles on her face.
“I’ve never done that before.” He laced his fingers behind his damp head.
“The first time is always the best.”
Noah followed her eyes up into the rafters high above them. A small sparrow fluttered into the wedge of light for a fleeting moment and was gone.
“Where are you goin’, Noah?”
He stretched his arms out over his body as Lily nestled her head upon his chest. “California maybe. I’m not too sure.”
Her index finger traced circles around one of the brass buttons on his coveralls. “I wanna come with you.”
Noah ran his hand through her billowing waves of flaxen hair. “The kind of life I’ve gotta live is no place for a lady like you.”
She huffed in frustration. “I’m tired of livin’ on this old smelly farm, and tired of seein’ the same small town.” She slammed her forearms into his chest and propped herself up on them. “I wanna go west with you, Noah. Take me with you, please.”
“I---” His gaze floated over to the hanging hammer in the far wall. “I need to get back to work.” Noah rubbed her shoulders and got to his feet.
“Please, Noah!” She swept a plume of straw into the air with an arm. “I can’t spend the rest of my life in this hell.”
“What you call hell,” he took the handle of the hammer back into his hand, “most of us would consider heaven.”
When the last nail had been hammered into place and the toolbox returned, Noah strode over the knoll and down into the hay fields to rejoin his crew. The lunch line had already formed and snaked most of the way through chow by the time he jogged to the bottom of the hill.
“About time you showed up,” Toby said. “We were about to eat your share for you.”
“One of them boards was really stubborn.” Noah’s thoughts flashed to Lily. “But I’m here now.”
“Uh huh.” Toby scratched his neck. “Boards.”
Noah looked around nervously and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Listen, you’ve gotta keep this thing between us, all right?”
“I’m tellin’ ya,” Toby hissed. “Stay away from her. She’s liable to get you shot over nothing worth it.”
“I know,” Noah inched forward in the line, “but she’s---we just.” How to put this delicately. “We’re really close now.” Noah’s brows shot up. “Ya know?”
“Ah, God, Noah.” Toby sounded more like his father now than a pal. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Too late for that.”
“If Buck finds out, he’ll shoot you so many times you’ll be fartin’ buckshot for weeks.”
Noah tugged on Toby’s elbow. “That’s why he ain’t findin’ out, right?”
Toby yanked his arm away from Noah’s grasp and took a sandwich from the tray. “Not from me.”
Noah got his share of the meal and followed his friend out under a sprawling oak tree where they finished their food in complacent silence.
After the midday break, Noah went back to work behind a pitchfork in the meadow. The afternoon sun baked the soil and his back with relentless abandon. They worked in teams of six forking the cut strands of grass into tall neat stacks around the clearing.
“How’d that work go up in the barn?” Rich tossed another fork-load of hay onto their stack.
Noah bent down and grabbed another bunch of the straw in his own pitchfork. “All right, I suppose.”
“Good.” Rich jabbed the tines of his instrument into the hard land. “Real good.”
A loud whistle reverberated from the crest of the knoll. “Extra water! Come on into the shade a spell!”
The tractor rumbled down into a wide patch of shade pulling a wagon loaded with water pails. Mac shut off the engine and pushed his straw hat back on his liver-splotched forehead.
“Boss says it’s getting too hot out here.” He climbed down out of the metal bucket seat. “Thinks we needed some extra refreshin’.”
Noah needed no further enticing. He jabbed his pitchfork into the ground and strode over to the coolness of the shade. He wove his way to the row of tin buckets where Lily waited with a full ladle.
Noah smirked. “Fancy meetin’ you here.”
“It’s a small town,” she said. “Word travels fast.”
Noah cupped his hardened hands around hers and brought the dipper to his parched lips. The cool spring water refreshed his exhausted body. He peered into her inviting eyes over the ladle’s brim.
“Care to go for a short walk?” She flashed a flirtatious grin.
He smiled and tagged alongside her toward a trail at the corner of the field. Noah strode after her billowing skirt over bent root and under sapling branch until they reached a babbling brook. Even Mac’s boisterous conversation had diminished to a faint whisper at their current distance.
Lily took him by the hands and gave him a passionate kiss. “So, have you changed your mind yet?”
“About what?”
Her lower jaw dropped. “About me, of course!”
“I told ya, Lil. My life ain’t fit for someone like you.”
She huffed and shoved his hands away. “For God’s sake, Noah. What do I have to do, get down on my knees and beg?”
“Well, no. ‘Course not.”
Her bright eyes shimmered under the rustling boughs.
“I know that look.” He sat his hands on his hips.
Lily gathered a bunch of her skirt in both hands and knelt before him in the grass. “Maybe I’ll do it anyway.” She reached up and unfastened his fly. “We’ll see if this changes your mind.”
The magic that followed ripped any anchors Noah had to reality right out of the ground. The harshness of the labor and the intense humidity melted into pleasurable warmth as he closed his eyes.
A gunshot rang out from back up in the meadow startling the couple out of their moment.
“Noah!” Buck’s bearish howl found its way through the steady breeze. “Get your hands off my daughter.”
“Oh, shit.” He shuffled backward fastening the buttons Lily had undone. “Oh, shit!”
Buck’s twelve-gauge boomed around the clearing as a mob of voices rose up around him. “I’d better not get my hands on you, boy!”
“Run, Noah. Now!” Lily sprung to her feet and ran back up the trail to head off her overbearing father.
Noah leaped over the narrow ribbon of water and made for the wooded hilltops in the distance. He had no idea what lay in wait for him in the far valley, but it had to be better than Old Buck’s shotgun.