In Open Spaces by Russell Rowland Read Free Book Online

shouted, bending over my brother. And Jack rushed up to George, falling on his knees next to George’s head. George was conscious, holding his ear, growling in pain. Blood trickled between his fingers.
    “I’m sorry, George,” Jack muttered. His face was so pale, I thoughthe was going to faint. The sweat soaked his shirt, and he ran his hand across his forehead so many times that the skin began to turn red. “I didn’t mean to hit you in the head. I was just trying to scare you.”
    “Goddamit, Jack, I was just kidding around,” he muttered.
    “I know,” Jack said. “Like I said, I’m sorry.”
    George had some trouble with his balance for a few weeks after that, and he sometimes couldn’t hear very well from that ear. That was the last time we took a break to play baseball.
    But the incident told me something about the relationship between my brothers. George had always been protective of us all, but particularly Jack. The buffer George provided between Dad and the rest of us was particularly thick in Jack’s case. I don’t think I realized how much this meant to Jack until that day. It was the most frightened I’ve ever seen him.
    I climbed back on Ahab, and we passed through the field where we had planted oats the previous two springs. This experiment—Dad’s idea—had raised a few eyebrows around the county. The general feeling was that we didn’t get enough moisture to support an oat crop. And I could tell by Dad’s pinched brow when we checked on the oats that he wasn’t entirely sure himself. But he had proven to be a prophet, as we’d been blessed with consecutive wet springs. The extra money provided enough to buy the McCarthy place—three thousand acres added to the six thousand we already had.
    I arrived at the big meadow, which formed the northwest corner of our property, and I went to work. I let Ahab drift, free to graze, while I wrestled with the grub hoe, which consists of two handles leading down to a blade across the middle. I hacked away at the solid, twisted plants, trying to break through the hard gumbo to their roots. I rested every now and then, breathing hard, gazing at the scene around me. At my back, the ground was clear except for the drying clumps of sage that I’d extracted from the hard ground.
    By mid-afternoon, I had cleared several acres, and my hands were sore and bleeding inside my gloves. My back felt like a clenched fist. The corn bread and jerky Mom had packed were gone, as were the dried apricots I’d pilfered from the root cellar. I watched the sun closely, wishing it would sink a little faster. I even took a guilty break, pulling George’s baseball from my saddlebag. I threw it at the trunk of a cottonwood a few times, but I got tired of fetching it when I missed. So I started winging rocks instead, winding up and kicking high with my left leg before letting each stone fly. I had been practicing a lot, so I was getting pretty good, and I hit the trunk more often than not.
    I had painted two stick figures on the back barn wall—one right-handed—one left-handed, along with a rectangular strike zone between them. And I threw George’s old worn ball against the gray planks almost every evening, studying his book until I learned to throw a respectable curveball. Occasionally, the old milk cow complained from inside the barn, telling me she needed some sleep.
    Around four o’clock, I heard an odd sound from the direction of Hay Creek. I stopped hoeing. But after waiting a moment, and hearing nothing, I went back to work. A minute passed, and I heard the sound again. It sounded like a cow. The third time, I decided I’d better check on it. So I called Ahab, and we sauntered toward Hay Creek. I dismounted and led Ahab cautiously along the creek’s edge. The ground was soft in places, but I didn’t see anything. We strolled along the bank for several minutes before a low moan filled the air, growing into a rich “mooo” that climbed higher and higher upon