Patricia is in the Creative writing group at the Fernley Senior Center. She grew up in Fallon and lives with her son Marty in Fernley.
"The people in this story are actually my parents, Dave and Glenna Edwards, both Fallon people of many years past. "
Patricia Edwards Jesch
Lemme Tell Ya
“Lemme tell ya, Joe, this was the darnedest thing. If I hadn’t seen it I never woulda believed it.” It was during our weekly Scrabble game that I remembered. Joe, a quiet man who mostly listens and thinks pondered his next word, said:
“I gotta think on this one for a couple minutes. What are you talking about?”
I said, “Joe, you’ve been out to the place where my son lives. Ya’d never guess what happened.
“OK, go ahead. You’re gonna chitter-chatter even if I want some quiet to think about this, so go ahead, tell me about it.”
“Yeah, OK. I drove out to his little ranch last Sunday morning. The cars were in the driveway so I knew the kids were home. The dogs came and said ‘hello’ when I got out but no one came out of the house so I knew they were prob’ly at the corrals or in the field.
“When I got to the stackyard the dogs trotted out and under the fence into the pasture. I crawled between the boards and followed them. I saw Dave and Glenna out in a grassy spot doing something with a team and an old hay mower. At first I couldn’t tell anything. I walked out past the manure pile to where they were and I asked Dave, my son, what they were up to.
“I’ve been wanting to get this draft colt into harness and finally got organized this morning,’ he said. Old Mug’s a good, gentle mare. She’s pulled a few sulkies at Golden Gate Fields down in the Bay Area, as you know. I think she’ll be able to keep him calm enough to hook up here.
I looked at the setup and asked, “You gonna drive’em?”
Dave looked at his wife, Glenna: “Well, Pop, you know the way my back’s been lately I can’t sit on that seat. Glenna’s just as good as any man. Never seen her in a situation she couldn’t handle when it comes to drivin’ a team.” Dave nodded at her and she gave a little shrug, ever the modest, shy gal.
“He motioned toward the mower seat and handed the long driving reins to her. Each leather line extends from the rings in each horse’s bit, as I’m sure you know. She stood behind the mower to hold the team while Dave stepped in to hook them up. I just stood back out of the way. Both of them have done this since they were kids, they didn’t need me.
“Dave got between the horses and the machine to link the hooks on each side of the double-tree. He got Mug’s traces hooked and moved around the big gelding, trailing his left hand on the horse’s flanks, speaking to him in a quiet tone. He kept his hand on the back of the left hind leg and reached down to the single hookup. The right trace moved down easy and Dave picked up the left one. With the hookup complete the weight of the mower was on the tongue. Glenna still stood with the lines in her hands. Dave looked at her as if to say something; that’s when the gelding moved his left hind foot. The mower shifted just enough to make the sickle bar clatter.
I took a sip of my coffee and Joe looked at me over the Scrabble board. He smiled and asked, “then what happened?” He had a good idea, and wait for me to go on.
“Well, it all went so fast I just stood there with my mouth open, lemme tell ya. That gelding took off like a bat outa hell with the mare struggling to keep up. Dave jumped out of the way just as the mower scraped past him. Glenna hadn’t gotten on the seat yet so she hung onto the lines and ran along with ‘em as fast as she could . Dave said, ‘Son of a gun!” and took off after them.
Joe gave me a quizzical look and picked up three of his Scrabble tiles to form a word on the board: I R A Q, he used the “r” from my word “farmer”. Dang, the Q was on a triple-score block. Jeez, that came to thirty-three points. I said:
“Well, lemme think on this for a minute. But I gotta get back to my story first.”
“It just so happened the pasture was still wet from irrigation the day before so there was a shallow pond in the low spot on the east corner and that’s exactly where that team was headed. Glenna kept up pretty good until they hit the water and she fell down. She hung onto the lines, the team just kept on going and she drug along like a bobber. She sent up a pretty good spray as she trailed along through the pond.
“Dave could see where they were headed and he cut across to try and catch them at the barbed wire fence. I hoped old Mug was strong enough to hold that gelding away from it. When they got to the high levee around the alfalfa at the fence line sure enough she sort of slowed a bit and Dave started to catch up.
I stopped talking to visualize the scene and I looked at my Scrabble pieces. Why do I always have either all vowels or all consonants? I gave a hopeless stare at the tiles already in place and decided my story was more pressing.
Joe laughed and shook his head, “C’mon, you can do at least a three-letter one can't you?”
“Oh, alright, here. How’s this?” I put my U, I, T and E on the Q. It came to fourteen points. I drew another four tiles, arranged them on my letter rack and took another sip.
“When Dave took a left turn in sinq with the team’s sweep he lost his slip-on moccasin. He wears those things on Sunday mornings before he goes out to do chores. I guess he didn’t take that into account when he came up with this plan. Anyway, he ran right along in a sock and a slipper. But it did slow him down. By then the team had made almost a complete circle right past me where the whole thing started. I was just glad they missed the wire and I watched Glenna fly by on her stomach as they made the turn.
“The second lap was pretty much on the same course, through the muddy little pond and up around past the alfalfa field. Dave was still committed to his plan to intercept the racers when they got near the next turn. Glenna clutched the lines tight. We all knew those horses were aware of her steady grip. She was all that kept them from hitting the wire.
“By then the gelding was tiring and Mug was in a fast trot. She hadn’t pulled a sulky for years and the hay mower was a darn sight heavier, especially with young plow horse hitched up close.
Joe asked, “Well, I know you’re having fun with this but it’s a big distraction from my concentration. Cut it short, OK?”
“Well, it did come to a screeching halt after the second lap ‘cause Dave grabbed Mug’s bridle when they passed by. He dug in his heels and she stopped. They pulled up in a short half-circle right close to where they’d started. He held the reins and I helped Glenna to her feet. Dave straightened them out, both horses were in a lather.
“Glenna! Are you alright?” Dave asked and went to her. She held out muddy hands and lifted them to show scraped, raw elbows. Of course, she was soaked from the two trips through the pond. Her waistband sagged with a thick build-up of mud, clover and grass from being dragged around on her belly. Lenses in her glasses had a solid coat of grit and mud. She took them off and said, “Jeez, I couldn’t see a thing!”
“I hate to say this but by then I started to chuckle, partly from the sight of this petite woman all muddied from a near-perilous experience, and partly from relief that everything, Glenna and the horses, was OK. Dave, in his usual comic optimism observed:
“Gee, Glenna, I guess we could say you were driving blind.”
She said, “It would have helped if you could’a caught them sooner, where were you?”
“I lost my moccasin and bogged down in the cockle burr patch!” He reached down to pull a couple of big prickly, brown burrs from his wet, muddy sock. “It’s darned lucky you were able to hang on, if you’d have let go that gelding might’ve pulled Mug and the mower through the wire.”
“Glenna went to the house to catch her breath and a welcome shower. I helped Dave unhitch and drive the team to the barn to unharness. We said little, each of knew we’d witnessed a breathtakingly lucky close call that could have turned into disaster.
Joe said, “Hey you! How do you like this one? See that?” He pointed to another triple word on the board. My score now lagged over forty points, but he didn’t know I had the one Z in the whole game, all I needed was a couple minutes to think.
He said, “You’re right, I’d have had to seen it to believe it. Now play Scrabble!”
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