Dave White, a young man growing up in Oklahoma in the early 1960s, feels hopelessly trapped by his life. He knows that if he doesn't leave, his heart will break. Dave knows he can't deny his dreams of a better life for a minute longer, so when a vague shadow of opportunity arises, he grabs it. Finally, he gets his chance to spread his wings and fly away with the wind. Dave follows his heart to the wheat harvest, but what he finds isn't exactly the stuff of dreams. Each year, thousands of men, women, and children from every crossroads, whistle-stop, town, and city go to the wheat harvest. Like these others, Dave finds twenty-four-hour days, working in the never-changing, sun-blistered fields. He finds a world of prejudice, pain, and sudden death. In this world, once a person is ten miles from home, no one cares if that person lives or dies. In seeking their dreams, Dave and the other workers find themselves challenged by a harsh reality. But in spite of these hardships, Dave also discovers true friendship and even love in these fields.
Dust in the Wind
A Story of the Wheat HarvestBy Tom MorrowiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Thomas Morrow
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4697-9081-7Chapter One
Crane, Oklahoma. June, 1960.
I looked into the faded blue eyes, almost buried in the gaunt, seamed face of Early Dean. He was taller than my five-seven, broader too, heavier than my one-forty, but stoop-shouldered and work worn. He shuffled his feet and a worried look wrinkled his face even more. "I'm sorry, Dave," his voice came from deep in his chest. "You been a good hand and I got no complaints, but Troy here," he motioned with his head to the battered truck in the driveway and the rawboned man, sitting next to the tousle-haired girl. "Why he's got a wife and kids to feed and you know as good as any how hard times are."
I studied the gravel of the road, then looked up, "I know, Early. But I need a job too." Hauling hay wasn't much of a job but I had counted on it for the whole summer.
"I know you do Dave. But you know I can't use both of you." He glanced up at the mockingbird that was calling his war cry from the oak tree, close by. "I'm gonna have trouble just keeping Troy working." Anger crept into his voice now, and he growled. "You're just a kid, Dave. Troy here's, he's got a family to feed, kids ... You know how it is."
"Yeah, Early, I know how it is," I looked away from the eyes that had grown hard, "I just wish ..."
"I do too Dave," his voice softened. "I hate to let you go, but ..."
"But Troy's got a family to feed." I smiled at Kathy. She was Early's sixteen-year-old daughter who drove the truck in the hay fields when she wasn't running the tractor, cutting, raking, and bailing the hay we hauled for the farmers and ranchers in the area. The ones that couldn't afford their own equipment. I looked back at Early. "It's alright, I ain't got no hard feelings, but maybe if things get better ..."
"You'll be the first I call, Dave."
"And maybe, if you hear of someone else needing help, maybe you can ..."
"I'll sure tell them to get hold of you. Call you here at your Daddy's."
"I'd appreciate it. I sure would."
"I'll do it," he held out a weather and work-battered hand.
I took it in a firm grip, the way Dad had taught me to shake hands. "It's been good, Early. You're a good man to work for."
"I appreciate that and I'm sorry I can't use the both of you," he said as he pulled a tattered billfold out of his faded blue jeans. "I figure you got twenty-six dollars coming for the last two days," he smiled. "Tell you what. I'll just make that an even thirty, for your trouble." He held out three tens.
"I thank you Early, for the bonus too. It wasn't necessary though."
He glanced away. "It was to me Dave, I hate to do things like this."
He scruffed the gravel under his feet purposely and I looked back at him, "I guess that's all that needs saying," I said and turned.
The door slammed on the battered truck. The engine started. I was almost to the house when Kathy yelled, "bye Dave, I'll see you around."
I waved at her as they drove off, took out my billfold and put the thirty dollars that represented two days of back-breaking, slave labor to move seventeen-hundred, thirty-some-odd, forty to sixty pound bales of hay. We loaded the bales on the truck in the sun-blistered fields, then unloaded and stacked them neatly in the top of an airless, overheated barn somewhere for a cent and a half a bale. But it was a damn sight better job than I had now.
I'd hoped to work the whole summer for Early, hauling, cutting and raking hay. I had my eye on a little 1953, Ford Coupe, a ticket to freedom that I could buy for two-hundred and fifty dollars. But now I had to find another job and I knew that might be tough.
Mom opened the screen door for me. "What's happened Davie?" Lines of worry wrinkled her forehead and eyes.
There was no easy way to say it. "I lost my job to Troy Calendar. He's got kids to feed." I walked on through the living room to the kitchen. The smell of the breakfast we had eaten still lingered in the air.
"That's too bad, Davie," Mom said from behind me, "But times is hard."
"I know how hard times are Momma, but I need a job too. I got things to buy, school clothes, and I'd like to have a car."
"I know, Davie," she poured two cups of coffee and sat with me at the metal-legged table. "They even made up a new word for how hard times is. They call it a 'recession' now instead of a depression, like when me and your father was young. But it means the same thing. People's out of work all over the country, not just here."
She touched my arm, "Davie, you ain't but seventeen. I know you need the work but Troy's got kids to feed. It's hard when you got kids to feed and you can't. It's hard watching your kids go hungry. It's something I hope you don't ever know."
I lit a cigarette, watching a fly crawl across the table. "I know, Momma. I'm not saying he didn't need the work more than me. I'm just saying I needed it too." My voice almost broke at the end.
She smiled then, "You'll find something else, Davie. I'll listen out for you and I'll tell Sara to listen too."
The fly reached a clear spot. I crushed it with a wire swatter, glad to hurt something. "Momma, you know I was lucky to get that job. You know there wasn't that much work around here, and now, what work there was is taken."
She gently patted my arm. "You found that job. You've worked every summer for the last four, you'll find something else. Just you wait and see. Your father found work. Things are beginning to open up a little. You'll find something."
I had to smile, but she was right. Dad had found work with the county, rebuilding the road to Madill. Who knows? I might even find something better than hauling hay. Anything I found would be easier for sure. The thirty dollars in my pocket came to my mind and the eighty I had saved from the last two weeks. One hundred-ten dollars, almost half what Fred Means wanted for the little Ford.
I smiled. "Yeah, Mom, I'll find something else. I got to find something else."
Her face lit up, "sure you will Davie." She brushed a strand of her dark brown hair, that was rapidly becoming salt and pepper with gray, behind her ear and looked at the clock. "Goodness, it's almost eight o'clock and I haven't even started on my housework."
She stood, "Davie, it would do your father proud if you was to do up some of the work around here today."
"Yeah, I guess I could start working the garden out, turning it and laying out a few more rows."
"That would be real good, Davie. Your father would like that."
My gaze traveled to the old elm tree that had fallen across the fence last winter in a high wind and generally messed things up. Dad and I had been cutting on it for a couple of weeks now but there was still a lot of work there. "I might even cut some on the old tree."
Mom looked that way, "just something. Your father will be disappointed if you don't do something."
"Yeah, I know." I took the coffee cups to the sink and went outside to the pump house. I got the shovel, then went to the far end of the garden. We had worked the ground here once but the Bermuda grass had almost taken it again and Dad wanted to plant a late crop here. I took off my shirt and started turning the ground. The moist, earthy smell of it came to me as I chopped the loamy clods into fine pieces. The work wasn't hard but it was boring and my mind went to the Blue River bottom where Early was working today. It would be hotter than blazes in there and the surrounding trees blocked what wind...
