Chapter 11: Graydon Wins a Fight

Spring merged into early summer; it was June and Graydon found himself working, harvesting hay for a rancher from whom his step-father had borrowed money. Graydon was working off the debt. He was able to handle the bales, weighing 70 to 80 pounds each, while walking beside a tractor-drawn wagon. He grabbed each bale by its wire bindings to swing it up to a stacker who waited with hay hooks. The stacker would shove the bale into place on the growing load. Even for June it was damned hot and sweaty work. Hay stems and leaves stuck to his body inside his shirt, down to his waist. The cut stem sides of the bales abraded away his blue jeans despite his short-legged leather bale apron. He gave each bale a “knee boost” to lift it upward in a swinging arc to reach the waiting hay hook above him. His legs above the knees were scratched red and raw. By day’s end he suffered deep, bleeding scratches and his blue jeans would be ruined. He was earning a dollar an hour. When his step-father’s debt was paid, Graydon would have nothing left for his own.

Blessed noon arrived, and Graydon and the others rested in the shade outside the hay shed to eat their sack lunches. He really didn’t mind the work. He was building muscle on his lean, lanky frame. Summer hikes with a backpack, and winter ski-treks across the slopes of Thompson and Virginian ridges had given him unusual stamina and endurance. He was not and never would be a heavy-weight brawler like his step-father. He was more like an antelope, not easily winded.

Leaning back against a fence post beside a watering tank where lush thick grass grew, Graydon was lost in his thoughts. He heard loud voices and stomping coming from around the corner of the hay shed. He’d heard the sound of rocks hitting the wood beams and metal roof moments earlier.

Stuffing his sandwich wrappings into the empty paper sack, and folding that into his back pocket, Graydon walked around the corner in time to see one of the high school crew jump forward to stomp his boot down on a fledgling swallow. Other struggling half-feathered hatchlings lay sprawled in the hay litter and dust, fluttering weakly with feeble cries. Other boys leaped forward to stomp these in turn. Another boy was flinging rocks at the mud swallow nests, breaking them loose from under the eaves and scattering the helpless birds.

Graydon flung himself into the first boy he could reach; his momentum carried them both toward the open hay shed. In their struggle they fell onto the first layer of bales that had been stair-stepped toward the back wall. The older boy tried to punch Graydon, but Graydon held tight and he could only pummel his fists against Graydon’s back. Being lighter, Graydon needed some advantage and he quickly found it. His knees pried open the gap on either side of a hay bale and he was able to wedge himself in place, locking the larger boy down with his strong legs. Now the challenge was to hold the larger boy’s arms down to keep him from punching his fists into Graydon’s face.