Chapter 11: Graydon Wins a Fight

Spring merged into early summer; it was June and Graydon found himself working, putting up hay bales for a rancher from whom his step-father had borrowed money. Graydon was working off the debt. He was able to handle the bales, averaging 60 to 75 lbs each, walking beside a tractor-drawn wagon and grabbing each bale by its wire bindings and swinging it up to another teenager with hay hooks, who would swing 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 rough stem sides of the bales abraded away his blue jeans, despite the short leather bale apron he wore as he gave each bale a "knee boost" to help lift it upward in a swinging arc to reach the waiting hay hook above him. His legs above the knees were red, raw and scratched. By day's end there would be deep scratches, some bleeding, 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 retired to the shade outside the hay shed for sack lunches and rest. He really didn't mind the work; he was growing more muscle and his lean, lanky frame seemed to have unusual endurance. Long days and months of summer hiking with a pack frame, and winter days skiing the long 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, but he was a superb antelope, not easily winded.

Sitting back against a fence post beside a watering tank where lush thick grass grew from the ground-soak spreading from the base of the tank, Graydon was lost in his thoughts. He heard loud voices and stomping sounds 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 the sandwich wrappings into the empty paper sack, and folding that into his back pocket, Graydon stepped around the corner just 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 babies lay sprawled, fluttering weakly with feeble cries in the hay litter and dust. Other boys leaped forward to stomp these in turn, while another boy was flinging rocks upward at the mud swallow nests, breaking them loose from under the eaves and scattering the helpless hatchlings.

Graydon flung himself into the boy he'd first seen stomping; his momentum carried them both toward the open hay shed and in the 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 he was being held too tightly and 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 down by his arms, to keep his fists from swinging up into Graydon's face.