5
Drew pulled his front door shut as he left the house and then made his way down the porch stairs before whistling for Ryker.
The dog had started going to the fields with Drew, and he’d learned to ride patiently inside the harvester, often sleeping at Drew’s feet while the header hummed.
But earlier that morning, Ryker hadn’t wanted to tag along, and Drew hadn’t known why—until he’d come home to grab more water and found Savannah and Ryker playing in the yard.
Of course; she always came by on Thursdays.
It was like the dog had learned to read a calendar.
Now, Savannah stood on the ground beside Drew’s driver’s side door—which he’d left open while he ran inside—and scratched Ryker’s back after the dog jumped up onto the bench seat. “So, I guess I’ll see you Sunday?” she asked, turning to address Drew as he approached.
He hummed a positive reply and waited while she moved out of the way; then he climbed into the cab.
A thought occurred to him as he reached out to close his still-open door, and he looked at where Savannah stood, and then at her car where it sat nearby.
He’d run into her a few times in the last two weeks—at church, at his uncle’s house when she was visiting Ashlyn, twice at stores in town and, of course, last Thursday when she’d stopped by to see Ryker—and his mood always felt a little darker after they’d parted ways, like she’d taken all the sunshine with her.
Now, the hours of solitude that loomed before him felt heavy—a far cry from the usual relief he felt when he could finally escape the company of other people.
It’s harvest season. That’s just how it is, he reminded himself. Unless . . .
“What are you doing right now?” he blurted.
She blinked a few times, obviously surprised by the question. “Umm, nothing really. Just going home. Why?”
Drew opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Just ask her! Go on! his mind urged, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, well, I was wondering . . . do you want to ride?”
Savannah’s gaze ran along the bench seat of the truck and back over him where he sat behind the wheel. “Don’t you have to go back to work?”
He cleared his throat again. Why did this feel so hard? “Well, yeah,” he started, “but that’s what I mean. Do you want to ride? In the combine? With me?”
Well, it came out as three separate questions somehow, but there it was.
Savannah’s mouth stretched into another one of her brilliant smiles, and she seemed to bounce on her toes. “I can do that? You don’t mind?”
“If you want,” he answered. “I mean, you don’t have to—”
“Yes!” she cried. Then she rushed around the front of the truck and yanked open the passenger’s side door. Ryker leapt down to the floorboard and sat beside her feet while she climbed inside and buckled herself in.
“Yes . . . great,” Drew echoed faintly. His brain was a little off-balance, first because he’d actually asked, and second because she’d agreed so quickly.
Well, here goes nothing, he thought, and he pulled his door shut with a bang.
Then he turned his key in the ignition. The old Ford came to life with a shudder, and he pulled forward onto the dirt track that led back toward his parents’ house and the fields beyond it, hoping he hadn’t just done something he’d regret later.
It took about fifteen minutes to reach the place where he’d left the combine, and Savannah chattered the whole way.
She commented on the trees and the leaves that had fallen in the recent storm.
She talked about the buzzards that circled in an updraft above the road, and she went on and on about the way the remaining cornstalks danced in the late September breeze.
Drew wondered in passing if she was just talking to fill the silence, but then he realized that, no, Savannah really had that much to say.
Which was a good thing because it meant she always had enough words for both of them.
“Wow, it’s so much bigger up close!” she said as he brought the truck to a stop near the hulking piece of machinery.
Drew cut off the engine and turned to look at her curiously. “Have you never ridden in one? You lived here for, what, four years before?”
“It is possible to live near fields without living in them, you know,” she replied.
Drew cocked his head as he watched her unbuckle and prepare to climb out of the cab.
He’d never thought about that, honestly; his entire life had revolved around the natural schedule of planting and harvesting.
He’d seen home videos of himself sleeping in the cab of a tractor before he could walk.
It all felt as normal to him as breathing, and yet there were hundreds of people who lived right there in Copper Hill who drove past the fields every day without actually working in them.
He wondered what it must be like to stand on the outside of that window looking in—to watch the crops grow without wondering what their moisture content was or if they’d be dry enough to harvest when the time came.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“Come on, boy!” Savannah called, and Drew furrowed his brow before realizing she was talking to Ryker and not to him.
The girl and the dog had already jumped down from the truck and were making their way through the short, cut stalks toward where the massive combine sat waiting beside a grain cart and tractor that were almost as large.
Drew flung open his door and hurried to catch up.
He reached around Savannah to grab the ladder just before she reached it.
“Okay,” he started. “So, Ryker goes first.” He crouched quickly and wrapped his arms under the dog’s chest and haunches before lifting him high enough to reach the metal walkway that led to the door of the cab.
The dog’s nails clattered against the rough material as he scrambled across the platform.
The first time they’d done this, the poor thing had refused to cross the narrow plank on his own, but now he handled it like a pro.
“Now, you,” Drew instructed, stepping back a pace to give Savannah enough room to go ahead of him.
She climbed the ladder without hesitation and joined Ryker on the other side.
“You can open the door and have a seat. I’ll be up in a minute,” Drew called.
He heard the door of the cab come open, and Ryker barked happily as he disappeared inside.
Drew, on the other hand, made a circuit of the machine to double-check that everything was still the way he’d left it.
“You brought company?”
A younger boy’s voice cut through the stillness, and Drew looked up at the tractor that pulled the grain cart. His cousin, James, was already inside, waiting. “Yeah,” he hollered back, but he didn’t offer any extra details. James was thirteen, and Drew didn’t feel the need to explain himself.
When he was satisfied with the combine, he scaled the ladder and strode across the walkway to the cab.
After sliding past his passengers, he took his place behind the wheel and felt the usual calm wash over him.
This was his happy place—the place where he felt most in control of his life.
He knew every inch of this harvester like the back of his own hand.
He’d fixed nearly every piece of it at one time or another, had cleaned it, oiled it and spent most of his life inside it.
This was where the buzzing in his mind quieted and the world felt most at peace.
Of course, it had never smelled like flowers before, but maybe he could ignore that.
The two-way radio beeped, and James’ voice came over it much louder than Drew had anticipated. “Alright, you two, no funny business over there,” the teenager admonished, and Drew snatched the handset from its cradle.
“Drive straight this time, okay, baby boy?” he shot back. He knew that would shut his cousin up; the boy had veered off course earlier in the week and nearly gotten both the tractor and the grain cart stuck in a ditch.
Sure enough, there was no answer to Drew’s taunt, and he set the radio down.
“Isn’t he a little young to be driving that thing?” Savannah asked.
Drew chanced a glance at her face and caught her smirking, though she otherwise seemed willing to ignore James’ interruption.
“It’s different when you’re a farm kid,” he explained.
He started the engine and then turned on the separator, causing everything beneath the cab to hum to life.
Dust rose into the air around them, but he barely noticed, instead turning on the combine’s header and finishing the automatic checklist in his mind.
He looked out the window and signaled to James that they were ready to go, and the boy pulled the grain cart into position alongside the combine.
Drew looked over at Savannah, who was watching him expectantly—probably waiting for more words.
He reached up and tugged on the brim of his cap.
Talk, Drew, he chided. “I was probably twelve when I started on the little things,” he went on, easily maneuvering the heavy equipment into place behind the next ten rows of uncut corn, “but you need a lot of practice before you can handle this thing by yourself.”
He hadn’t meant for that to sound boastful, but somehow it did.
Savannah nodded her head slowly, as if taking it all in.
“Well, you obviously know what you’re doing,” she replied, her eyes glued to the front window as Drew lowered the header and the combine began to follow the rows forward.
The stalks bent before the machine as it slid easily along, cutting and separating the kernels as it went.
A familiar rushing sound came from behind them, and Drew turned to make sure his auger was securely above the empty grain cart as the golden corn spilled out of the tube and collected at the bottom of the bin.
“That’s so cool!” Savannah gushed.