“If I’m going to get sicker, it’ll be from people,” he said. “Horses are clean.”

The horses had picked out the alfalfa from a new batch of hay and left piles of oat straw on the ground. My father decided that rather than let the leftovers rot in a pile, we should spread them around the field to mulch. He hoped some of it would seed, and I didn’t argue. I raked trampled straw into piles, and he lifted it to the truckbed in forkfuls of shiny gold.

When we had filled the truck, he climbed in with his pitchfork to scatter the hay. I rolled down the window, sitting on the edge of the seat to get the clutch in, and started the engine. The radio blared on and I fumbled for the volume.

In the rearview mirror my father leaned on the pitchfork for balance. I let the clutch out in the compound gear and the truck rolled itself forward. He rocked and recovered in the mirror, and pitched the hay out in dusty yellow clouds. His face was red under his hat. At the far corner of the field I braked, and his breathing grew easier until he gave me a thumbs-up in the mirror to start again.

He held on while I turned the truck around, and we headed back across the dry late-summer field. The wind changed direction and blew a storm of golden straw through the open window into the hot cab of the truck. I rolled the window up against the flurry, and the flakes spun in the light as we drove back to the barn for another run.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maile Meloy was born in Helena, Montana. She received the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction for the best story of 2001 in The Paris Review. Her stories have also appeared in The New Yorker and in Ploughshares. She lives in California.