Chapter Eighteen
Holly
The early afternoon sun beats down on me, baking the skin on my already burnt shoulders.
I adjust my seat in the rickety, sun-warmed wooden bleachers that run parallel to the dirt lane, watching as tractors line up at the starting line for the pulls.
Some smaller tractors have already gone, followed by a few pickup trucks.
I clapped along with the other spectators as they started to hoot and cheer, but even after nearly an hour of watching, and the brief rundown Grayson gave me earlier, I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to be cheering for at a tractor pull.
“So, what do you think of the big event?” Harper calls out as she moves toward where I’m seated.
She has a bottle of water tucked under one warm, balancing a paper container with a ear of grilled corn in each hand.
She hops the wooden steps with ease, a telltale sign of her life growing up in a small town.
Her belly button ring glimmers as it catches the sun, and I follow the eyes of the drooling local boys who watch her slide by in her daisy duke jean shorts.
The ends of her hair are now bright blue, which looks as good as the bright pink did last time I saw her.
“Mexican street corn or Parmesan garlic?” She offers both ears of corn to me once she sits, and since they both smell amazing, I tell her she can pick her favorite and I’ll have the other. She looks at the containers in her hands and hands me the Parmesan garlic one.
I grab the tip of the corn with one hand, holding on to the dried stalk with my other, and jump in with a massive bite. “Oh my gosh,” I say, covering my hand over the mouthful. “This is so good.”
Harper nods in agreement, taking an equally large bite of her corn cob. “Copper Ridge might not have traffic lights or a movie theater, but at least we make good corn.”
We watch in comfortable silence as the next group of tractors pull, and after a round of cheers, I finally get the courage to lean over to Harper and say, “I’ve been watching this for almost an hour, and I’m still not sure what the point of this is.”
She snickers at that, taking another bite of her corn before pointing and speaking.
“The point of it all, I guess, is that we live in a really small fucking town and get bored.” She looks over at me, her Hart family blue eyes sparkling in the overhead lamps.
“Believe me, the first few times you watch, you’re like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ But once you see a few and understand how much weight they’re pulling and the technique that goes into it, it’s kind of fun. ”
I nod along, taking another bite of my corn. “And Grayson has been doing this since high school?”
“Yup. He started fixing up one of our great-grandpa’s old tractors from the 1930s. He started driving tractors when he was around twelve, I believe, and entered his first competition at fifteen.”
“Jeez, I didn’t even know you could legally drive a tractor at that age.”
Harper laughs. “Legally?” She bops her shoulders back and forth. “That’s a loose term in this town, I guess. But no one is driving out to the homesteads making sure kids aren’t driving a tractor. You do what you gotta do.”
“Was Grayson good right away?”
“He pulled each year during the summer festivals.” She points to an old wooden scoreboard across the tracks with hand-painted results, one I hadn’t noticed the entire time I’ve been sitting here. “He still holds the highest record, earned that when he was only nineteen.”
“Damn,” I mutter under my breath. “He said he hadn’t done it in a while, how come?”
She looks back to the dirt track, working her bottom lip between her teeth for a bit before answering, “Gray decided one day to take on the responsibility of the family farm and put the entire weight on his shoulders.” She sets her corn down to crack open her water, taking a drink before she continues, “He loves the farm. When we were kids, my other brothers and I used to gripe about having our set chores. Gray never did. He’d be in the barn way after he was done, checking on the animals, talking to them under his breath. You know Maple, his horse?”
I nod, my throat feeling tight as her story unfolds.
“Senior year, he was driving to school one morning, pulled into the gas station, and at the other pump was a man with a horse in a trailer. Said the horse was only a few years old but was no good, wouldn’t listen, couldn’t train her or something like that, so he was off to bring it to slaughter.
” She sets her water down by her feet and reaches for her corn again.
“This is fucking amazing. Anyways, Gray took one look at that horse and his big heart went out to it. He asked the man to stay, skipped school, waited for the bank to open, and cleared out his entire savings account to buy that horse.” She chuckles, and her head falls back with laughter.
The movement has a few heads turning, and I wonder if she realizes the effect she has on the guys her age, or older, based on who’s looking.
It’s like they’re waiting for the moment her eyes might meet theirs, that they could smile and maybe get the opportunity to talk to someone as cool as her.
“My parents were so pissed,” she starts again.
“He had been saving to go to a vocational school for mechanics, figured it'd help with the farm. He was just a teen, loved the farm but didn’t know the cost of anything. A horse like that, young, not purebred, not trained, should’ve only been worth a few hundred dollars.
One that was truly going off to slaughter should have been free.
” She turns to me with a serious expression on her face.
“That asshole told Gray it would cost eight thousand dollars … and he paid that.”
My jaw falls as tears well in my eyes. I turn away from Harper, breathing in deeply through my nose. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Holy shit. You can see why my parents were so pissed. But honestly, I don’t think Gray regrets it at all. He saved her, he loves her, that’s all he cares about.”
I think back to that initial meeting with Maple in the barn. Grayson's hushed, kind words, and his soft nurturing. For a horse that was once neglected, possibly abused, to fall into the hands of such a kind man, no wonder she turned out to be such a trusting soul.
“He loves that stupid farm, but it’s been slowly dying ever since we were kids. They wanted all of us to take care of it, but they also wanted us to do something more than give ourselves over to something that won’t make a life for us.”
“The farm is failing?” I ask with disbelief.
I don’t know anything about farms, only what I’ve seen the few times I’ve visited, but to me, I see a beautiful piece of land.
I see healthy animals that are well taken care of, and miles and miles of crops that are grown with love.
I see buildings that have continued to stand the test of time because hardworking hands have fixed them.
“Maybe failing isn’t the right word.” She shrugs, reaching again for the bottle of water by her feet.
“Bills get paid, they don’t have a mound of debt, and everyone makes an average living, but there isn’t anything left over to buy new equipment, to buy more land, give raises and stuff.
It’s managing, but each year, I can see the strain on my parents’ face, and the frustration Grayson lives with, wondering how much longer they will be able to afford to keep it. ”
My heart aches deep in my chest. I can already see the love Grayson and his family have for the farm.
It’s where four generations of Harts made their family, their living.
I’ve only known him a short while, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else taking over that land.
I couldn’t imagine the walls of the family farmhouse slowly splintering and falling apart when no one lives inside.
I couldn’t imagine the roof of the barn caving in during a particularly bad winter.
“Mom, Dad, over here!” Harper raises an arm in the air, waving down her parents as they make their way to the bandstand.
“Oh my gosh, my grandma even came!” She rises from her seat to race down the stairs, hugging her grandma as soon as she’s within arm’s reach.
She then carefully feathers her fingers through hers and leads her up the stairs to where I’m seated.
I scoot down, moving to the end of the bench that rests against a fenced wall, making enough room for Grayson’s family to sit. When his grandpa is within reach, I stand and give each one of them a big, welcoming hug.
“So, what do you think of your first tractor pull?” Grayson’s grandpa asks, using his hold on my elbow to brace himself as he sits on the bleacher.
“Well, I’ll admit, I have no idea what I’m even watching.”
He chuckles at that, causing the wrinkles around his eyes to tighten. “I imagine it’s not something that happens in the city.”
“Not too often,” I tease. “But I’m excited to see Grayson go.”
The loudspeakers crackle, and a female voice announces the first contestant in the five thousand class, and Grayson’s grandpa leans over toward me. “Five thousand class means the tractor and all its modifications have to weigh less than five thousand pounds.”
I nod along as the explanation finally clarifies the last hour of numbers being rattled off.
“And Grayson is driving your dad’s tractor?”
His grandpa smiles down at me before looking toward the lineup and eyeing Grayson sitting third in line. “He sure is. That boy has had a fascination with that tractor ever since he was a kid.”