The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf

them that morning himself on the grindstone; they were knife sharp. Now his fingers were in them, between the bright blades, and his fingers were being mangled, torn to bone and bits, broken, cut, sliced. And he was yelling. All the time he was yelling, cursing, screaming, his feet kicking out wild behind him, the header was still moving forward, jolting in the rough field, with Edith and Lyman running alongside, yelling at the horses, the horses wild with the noise and still lunging forward in the harness, shoving the header at him, carrying him forward with it, cutting wheat with his fingers. It wasinsane, insanity, it was hell. The bats of the reel were cracking him down again and again, and still the wheat was being cut all around him, and his fingers were in the blades, being cut, sliced, hacked, and then it was over. It was done. That fast. He was torn free from his fingers and carried off to the side by the canvas belt.
    They got the horses stopped. John Roscoe had seen what was happening. He had jumped down from the stack and had come running across the field, and he and Lyman had stopped the horses finally. Now Edith was helping her father crawl out of the header. It was bad. He had a long open cut above his eyes, another in the hair at the back of his head; one of his pants legs was ripped from cuff to thigh and showed deep bruises and cuts all along his leg; he was covered all over with blood and wheat chaff. But it was his hands that frightened you. He held them in front of him, out away from his body, as if they were exhibits. His hands were gore now, raw meat, hamburger. All the fingers and the thumb on his right hand were gone, chopped off. The thumb and the first three fingers on his left hand were gone too, just ragged meat and splintered bone, leaving his little finger alone on that hand, alone of all his fingers, uncut. It was ridiculous. His little finger on his left hand didn’t have a scratch on it. It was a mockery. He held his hands out in front of him, staring at them, as if he had finally gone insane entirely, while his ruined hands throbbed blood, dripping the blood off the jagged stumps of his fingers, down into the wheat stubble and sand at his feet.
    “Oh Daddy,” Edith cried. “Oh God, Daddy. Come on, we’ve got to get to the doctor. Can you walk? Oh God, come on, though.”
    Roy seemed almost to wake up then. He seemed almost to come out of his wild fascinated daze. “I ain’t leaving,”
    he said. He wasn’t yelling anything now; he was just talking, high, in a kind of old man’s shocked whine. His fingers were gone. “I ain’t leaving,” he said. “They’re mine.”
    “What? No, come on. What are you talking about? We’ve got to hurry. Help me.”
    “I ain’t leaving them here. They’re mine. They ain’t yours, are they? They ain’t yours.”
    “No, please. Oh God. Help me, John.”
    John Roscoe took Roy’s arm and tried to lead him away, tried to get him to walk towards the road. But he pulled his bloody arm free.
    “They’re mine, goddamn it. I tell you, they ain’t yours. I told you, didn’t I?”
    “Yes, you told us,” John Roscoe said.
    “They ain’t yours.”
    “No.”
    “They’re mine. I told you already.”
    “Yes, all right. We’ll find them.”
    “Give them to me. I want them all.”
    “We’ll find them,” John Roscoe said. “Lyman, go get my car started. Bring it here.”
    “Oh Jesus,” Lyman said.
    “Hurry up, goddamn it. Run.”
    Lyman turned and ran stumbling across the wheat stubble to get the car. He fell down, jumped up again, and ran on. Edith and my father stood with Roy Goodnough beside the header. His hands and arms were twitching uncontrollably now, dripping blood all the time. He held them out in front of him. His face was bloody from the wound above his eyes, and there was more blood running down the back of his neck.
    “I told you,” he said. “I already told you so.”
    “He’s going to die,” Edith said.
    “No, he