The Last Bed of the Harvest

Bed 9

We got to the marsh at about half past three. The sky had gone pale and cloudy, and the light lay soft and even on the water, the way it does in late October in that country.

The tamaracks around the reservoir had turned that bright yellow they turn right before they drop their needles.

I parked by the shop. Grandpa sat on the edge of the flatbed, the same flatbed where he had folded his old waders a month before, and he put on the new ones.

It took him a while. I did not help unless he asked, and he asked once, for the left suspender.

Eli watched every move. He stood there holding his basket with both hands like it was full of eggs.

When Grandpa was ready, he went into the shop and came out with the old wooden boom.

It had been hanging on two nails on the back wall since last fall. He ran his hand along the ash, all the way from one end to the other.

“My dad made this in 1964,” he told Eli. “Out of a tree that grew right over there, by the reservoir. You take care of a good tool, it’ll outlast you.”

We walked out the dike together, Grandpa in front with the boom on his shoulder, me and Eli behind. The grass was dry that day. I watched every step he took anyway.

Bed 9 was flooded and floating. The water reel had been through it that morning, and the whole bed was red, wall to wall.

If you have never seen it, there is nothing like it. It looks like someone poured out a sky full of red marbles.

The crew was down at the far corner by the pump, getting the floating boom set. Rudy saw us first. He straightened up, and I watched him understand what he was looking at.

He started toward us along the dike. Rudy is 60 years old. Grandpa hired him when he was 22, and taught him everything he knows about the marsh, the same as he taught Marcus and Joe.

Grandpa lifted his hand. “You stay up there, Rudy,” he called. “Nobody let me do anything. I’m doing this myself. You all heard me say it.”

He was keeping their jobs safe, and every one of them knew it. Rudy stopped where he was.

Tina came up beside him, and then Marcus and Joe, and the four of them stood farther down the dike in their work jackets and caps and waders, watching.

Nobody said a word.

Grandpa walked to the low corner of bed 9 nearest the reservoir, where there is a wooden rail along the grassy dike. He laid the boom in the grass beside it.

He leaned both hands on the rail and looked out over the bed for a long moment. The crew watched from down the dike. Eli and I stood behind him. Then he smiled, just a little.

He went down at the corner, well clear of the ditch that runs along the far dike.

He sat down on the edge of the bank and eased himself in, feet first, the way he had done ten thousand times.

The berries closed around him. He stood up in them waist deep, steady, and he let out a breath I think he had been holding for a month.