The Little Ford That Pulled the Excavator Out

He stood up a little straighter than I’d ever seen him stand.

Last, I hooked the chain to the drawbar of the 8N. I hooked it low, down on the drawbar where it’s supposed to go, and I checked it twice.

Brent asked about that. He was standing closer now. “Why so low?”

“Because an 8N hitched high will rear up and come over backward on you,” I said. “Short wheelbase, all the weight up front. It has killed better farmers than me. You hook it low and it’ll pull the front end down instead of up.”

He nodded slowly. I saw him look at the drawbar and then at his own machine, and I think that was the first time all week he looked at my tractor like a piece of equipment.

My daughter Jenny didn’t know any of this was happening. She’s a nurse at the hospital in Yankton and she was on a twelve hour shift, and nobody wanted to call her at work to tell her that her husband’s machine was in her father’s creek and her father was about to try something.

I’ll tell you the truth: I thought about calling her anyway. Then I thought that this was between Brent and me, out on the ground, and it was better settled there than over a phone.

Shane climbed up in the cab and started the engine. The rain had let up to a mist. The cottonwoods along the creek had gone yellow, and the whole bottom smelled like wet leaves and diesel.

I got up on the seat of the 8N. I pulled my seed cap down. I put it in first gear, low range on the throttle, and looked back over my shoulder at Cole.

He waved me ahead.

I let the clutch out slow. The chain came up out of the stubble and went tight, and then the cable went tight, and I heard it make a little humming sound, almost a song, the way a fence wire does in the wind.

Down in the creek, Shane set the bucket up on the bank as far as he could reach, curled the arm, and put the tracks in gear.

The machine groaned. The 8N squatted down on its rear tires and the lugs dug in.

And the excavator moved.

It wasn’t much. Maybe eighteen inches. But it moved toward the bank instead of away from it, and when the bucket slipped, the machine didn’t slide back, because the line was holding it.

Cole put his fist in the air. I stopped. Shane reset the bucket higher on the bank. Cole waved. I came ahead.

Another foot and a half.

That’s how the whole afternoon went. Bucket, line, tracks, stop. Bucket, line, tracks, stop.

Every time I’d run the 8N out to the end of the chain, maybe thirty feet of travel, we’d have gained fifteen feet on the machine.

Then I’d back down, and the crew would pull the slack, and I’d take a new bite on the cable with the chain.