Dollybird by Anne Lazurko Page B

come from places I’d never even heard of. It was a guilty kind of joy pumped up my chest as I got closer. I was a man again, with no child to make me weak or single me out.
    A great beast of a machine was set on a flat wagon, draft horses harnessed and ready. A line of wagons and bunkhouses were hitched to mules, donkeys and oxen. Climbing on the machine and hollering at everyone to “look at this big fogger” was a squat-looking man with a thick neck, and forearms looking like they could crush anything. He glared at me and my stomach somersaulted.
    â€œWhat are you looking at?” he shouted over the commotion around him. His voice was slurred with a heavy accent I didn’t recognize.
    My tongue was thick. “I’m just...uh...”
    â€œListen to the fuckin’ mental. Just stay out of my way, you little...”
    A large hand gripped my elbow and steered me toward the line of wagons.
    â€œNever mind him then. He’s a horse’s ass.” The voice was heavy with an Irish brogue. The hand belonged to a huge man with flaming red hair and beard. “Name’s Henry. First time with the crew then?”
    It was more a statement than a question. I nodded.
    â€œJust stay away from Gabe.” Henry nodded slightly toward the man who was swinging like a monkey from one wagon to the next, hollering at everyone he saw. “He’s an idiot, but you gotta feel sorry for him, poor bugger.” He shook his head. “Waiting for his chance two years now, but he hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting any land. He’s Polish, or Ukrainian, maybe Russian for all I know.”
    I must have looked stunned.
    â€œNo one’s gonna give him the time of day, especially the land office. Government wants to keep folks like him out as long as they can.” Henry looked at me like I understood, so I just nodded. “But he’s a stupid bugger too. Doesn’t help his chances, acting like he does. Don’t know his arse from a knot in a pine board. But he can work. I’ll give him that.” Henry pulled himself up so he towered over me. “Now what might you be good for?”
    â€œI don’t know, but...” I decided I’d better sound like I knew something from a pine board. “I’d sure like to get on the threshing crew.”
    â€œHa!” Henry boomed. “Wouldn’t you though? You’ll start pitching like everybody else. Work hard and learn fast and you’ll move on to the machine soon enough, ‘specially since the harvest is so late. Maybe get to drive a wagon.”
    â€œI’ll do my best.”
    â€œYeah. One more thing.” Henry gave me a sidelong look. “Where’re you from?”
    â€œArichat.”
    â€œGood. I got a second cousin from there. Good.” He walked away.
    I trailed behind feeling foolish until a wagon rumbled by and I jumped in. I grunted to the men already in the back and pretended to doze with my hat pulled down over my face. From under the brim I recognized some of the men from Halifax. Thank Christ Gabe wasn’t with ’em.
    The weeks of harvest were a blur. A new farm every few days. Men dropped off and others took their places. The sweet smells of harvest made my eyes itch and my nose drip like a leaky bucket. Even my ears itched. On the inside. Henry told me it was the dust, said a good rain would dampen things down and take care of it. Sometimes I slept in a bunkhouse on a thin mattress, sometimes in a hayloft, the loose straw giving comfort to my aching back. Exhausted and sore, I’d have slept hanging from a tree, grateful finally to sleep without dreams or regret.
    I was one of two pitchers, forking the heavy stooks onto a wagon that took them to the threshing machine. After three weeks of the endless rhythm of stab, lift, heave, pitch, Henry finally told me I’d be getting a better job. But I didn’t want one. Sure I suffered with itching and snot and