Hector

The Honest Season

Chapter 6: Hector

He arrived at 5:45. He arrived every morning at 5:45, the arrival that was not scheduled but was habitual, was the time that Hector Flores had been arriving at the Enger place for fourteen years, the time that his body chose in 2012 when Tom hired him and that his body had maintained every working day since, the clock that was set not by an alarm but by the accumulated habit of rising at 4:50 in the house on Leighton Boulevard in Miles City and drinking the coffee that Maria made and eating the eggs that Maria made and kissing Maria and driving the forty-five minutes east on Route 16, the drive that carried him from the town where he slept to the land where he worked, the daily crossing that was the geography of his life, the map whose two points were the kitchen on Leighton Boulevard and the barn on the Enger place and whose connecting line was forty-three miles of highway and county road and the particular Montana light of early morning that was different every day and the same every day, different in its color and its angle and its temperature and the same in its presence, the light that was always there, that always accompanied him on the drive, that was the companion of the commute.

He parked the truck beside the barn. The truck was a 2008 Dodge Ram 1500, white, the white that was no longer white but was the gray-white of a truck that had been driven 187,000 miles on gravel roads and that carried the gravel's record in its paint, the fine scratches and the stone chips and the particular dulling that gravel produced on a surface that was never washed because washing a farm truck was not something Hector did, was not something any farmer or farmworker did, the washing being an act of vanity that the work did not support, the work being the thing that mattered and the truck being the thing that carried you to the work and the carrying was sufficient, was the truck's purpose, was the reason the truck existed.

He got out. The air was cold. May in eastern Montana was cold in the morning and warm in the afternoon and the span between the cold and the warm was thirty degrees, was the daily oscillation that the season produced, the swing from frost to shirt-sleeves that the body navigated without complaint because the body had been navigating it for fifty-two years, since Hector was born in Miles City in 1974, since the body's first May, the first oscillation, the beginning of the body's education in the climate that would be the climate of his life.

Rust met him at the barn door. The dog was always at the barn door when Hector arrived, the border collie's internal clock as precise as Hector's, the two clocks synchronized by fourteen years of shared mornings, the man arriving and the dog greeting and the greeting being not a bark or a jump but a press, the dog pressing his body against Hector's leg, the pressure that was the dog's handshake, the physical contact that said: you are here, I know you, the work can begin.

Hector reached down and touched the dog's head. He touched the red-brown fur between the ears, the spot that Rust leaned into, the spot that Tom touched and that Hector touched and that the touching was the transfer, was the continuity, was the thing that connected Hector's hand to Tom's hand through the dog's skull, the bone and the fur and the warmth of the animal that both men touched and that both men knew and that carried both men's scent in its memory, the olfactory record of two handlers, one dead and one alive, both present in the dog's brain.

"Morning, viejo," Hector said. He called the dog viejo because the dog was eleven and eleven was old for a border collie and the oldness was visible in the gray on the muzzle and the stiffness in the hips and the particular slowness of the rise from the lying position, the rise that used to be instantaneous and that now required a moment, a gathering, the body collecting itself before it moved, the collection that age required and that youth did not.

He opened the barn door. The barn was Tom's barn, was still Tom's barn, would always be Tom's barn regardless of who opened the door and who worked inside it and who maintained the equipment that lived on the concrete floor that Carl poured in 1974. The barn was sixty by one-twenty, steel frame, steel siding, and Hector knew every square foot of it the way he knew every square foot of the house on Leighton Boulevard, by use, by repetition, by the accumulated knowledge of a body that has moved through a space ten thousand times and that has mapped the space in its muscles and its joints and its reflexes, the spatial memory that allowed Hector to walk through the barn in complete darkness and not touch a thing he did not intend to touch.

The pegboard was on the north wall. Tom's pegboard. The wrenches on the left, the screwdrivers on the right, the pliers in the center, the hammers on the far right, the arrangement that Tom established and that Hector maintained with the fidelity of a man who understood that the arrangement was not arbitrary but was a system and the system was Tom's and the maintaining of the system was the honoring of the man who built it, the honoring that was not sentimental but was practical, was the recognition that the system worked and that working systems should not be changed by the living simply because the designer was dead.

Hector used the tools. He used them every day. He used the three-quarter-inch wrench that was in Tom's hand when Tom died, the wrench that Hector cleaned that day, the January day, the day that Hector scrubbed the floor and cleaned the wrench and hung the wrench back on its hook and then sat on the bench and put his face in his hands and stayed that way for eleven minutes, the eleven minutes that were the only time in fourteen years that Hector stopped working during working hours, the eleven minutes that he gave to the grief before he stood up and walked to the house and asked Ruth what she needed him to do next, the asking that was the resumption, the return to the work, the work that did not stop because a man died, the work that could not stop because the work was the farm and the farm was alive and the alive required tending regardless of who was dead.

He walked to the air drill. The air drill was in the east bay, the Great Plains 4000, the forty-foot drill that Tom bought in 2016, the drill that planted the Enger wheat, that opened the furrows and placed the seed and closed the furrows and pressed the soil over the seed and moved forward, always forward, the drill advancing across the field at 5.5 miles per hour, the speed that Ruth set and that Hector maintained when it was his turn in the tractor, the speed that was not fast and not slow but was right, was the speed that placed the seed at the correct spacing and the correct depth and the correct rate, the speed that the drill required to do its work accurately, the accuracy that the wheat required to emerge evenly.

The drill needed maintenance. The drill always needed maintenance in April, the pre-season maintenance that was the preparation, the readying of the machine for the work it would do, the work that would begin when the soil temperature reached fifty degrees and that would continue for seven to ten days depending on the weather and the ground conditions and the particular pace that the season allowed, the pace that was not the farmer's pace but was the season's pace, the farmer serving the season and the season serving the crop and the crop serving the market and the market serving the world, the chain of service that began in the barn with a man and a wrench and a machine that needed a grease fitting replaced.

Hector pulled the grease gun from the hook on the pegboard. The grease gun was a Lincoln, the lever-action, the gun that Tom used and that Hector used, the gun that delivered lubricant to the bearings and the joints and the pivots of the drill, the lubrication that prevented the metal-on-metal contact that produced heat and friction and wear and failure, the failure that could not be allowed during planting because planting was the window, was the narrow opening in the season through which the seed must pass, and a drill breakdown during planting was not an inconvenience but was a crisis, was the closing of the window, was time lost that the season would not return.

He greased the drill. He greased every fitting. He greased the opener bearings — eighty of them, forty openers with two bearings each — and the press-wheel bearings and the pivot points and the hydraulic cylinder pins and the drive-chain tensioners, the total of 127 grease fittings that the 4000 contained, the 127 points where metal met metal and where the grease was the mediator, the thin film that separated the surfaces and that allowed the surfaces to move against each other without destruction, the grease that was the peacekeeper between the parts.

One hundred and twenty-seven fittings. Hector counted them not because he needed to count them but because counting was the verification, was the confirmation that none had been missed, that every bearing and every joint had received the grease and that the machine was ready, was prepared, was maintained in the way that Tom required and that Hector provided, the maintenance that was Hector's primary skill, the skill that Tom recognized in 2012 when Hector applied for the job.

Tom hired Hector because Hector understood machines. Tom hired him because Hector's hands, when they held a wrench, held it the way Tom's hands held it — with knowing, with the pressure that was correct and not excessive, with the turn that was smooth and not jerky, with the feel that mechanics have, the feel that is not taught but is innate, is the thing that some hands possess and other hands do not, the mechanical sympathy that allows a person to sense through the wrench what the bolt is doing, whether the bolt is tightening properly or whether the bolt is stripping, whether the threads are engaging or whether the threads are crossing, the information that the metal transmits through the steel of the wrench to the nerves of the hand and from the nerves to the brain and from the brain to the judgment that says: stop, this is tight enough, or: back off, this is wrong.

Hector had the hands. Hector had the hands because Miguel had the hands. Miguel Flores, Hector's father, who came to Miles City in 1978 from Chihuahua, who came north because the north had work and Chihuahua did not have enough work for a man with Miguel's skills, the skills of an engine mechanic, the skills that Miguel brought across the border the way the Scandinavian settlers brought the Lutheran faith — as essential equipment, as the thing that would sustain him in the new country, the skill that was his currency, the thing he could exchange for the money that would become the house on Leighton Boulevard and the life that the house contained.

Miguel opened a shop. He opened it in 1980, two years after arriving, the two years spent working for other shops, learning the local machines, learning the local engines, learning the particular demands of Montana equipment — the cold-weather starting, the dust filtration, the heavy-load cooling, the requirements that the climate imposed on the machines and that the mechanics must understand or the machines would fail. He opened the shop on Main Street in Miles City, the shop that rebuilt engines for the ranchers and the farmers and the truckers of Custer County, the shop where Hector grew up, the shop where Hector's hands learned the wrench, the shop where the genetic inheritance of mechanical sympathy was activated by proximity, by demonstration, by the standing-beside that was Miguel's method of teaching and that was Tom's method of teaching and that was the universal method of teaching the mechanical, the method that says: watch, then do, then do again, then do until the doing is the knowing.

Hector finished the grease fittings at 7:30. He had been working for an hour and forty-five minutes. He had greased 127 fittings and checked the opener blades for wear and inspected the seed tubes for cracks and verified the hydraulic hoses for leaks and tested the fan motor for the air delivery system, the system that carried the seed from the tank through the manifold and down the tubes to the openers, the pneumatic system that was the drill's circulatory system, the system that moved the seed the way Hector's truck moved Hector, from the place where the seed was stored to the place where the seed would work.

Ruth came to the barn at 7:45. She came with coffee. She came with two mugs, the white mug with the chipped handle for herself and the blue mug for Hector, the blue mug that was Hector's mug, the mug that Ruth assigned to him in 2012 and that Hector had used every morning for fourteen years, the mug that was his in the way that the tools on the pegboard were Tom's — by assignment, by use, by the accumulation of mornings and the accumulation of coffee and the accumulation of the small ritual that the mug represented, the ritual of the employer bringing coffee to the employee, the ritual that was not servitude but was partnership, was Ruth's way of saying: we are in this together, the work is shared, the coffee is shared, the morning is shared.

"Morning," she said.

"Morning," he said.

He took the mug. He held it with both hands. The warmth of the coffee moved through the ceramic and into his palms and the warmth was welcome because the barn was cold, was the forty-two degrees of May morning in a steel building that had no insulation and no heat and that held the temperature of the outside air the way a glass holds the temperature of the liquid it contains, faithfully, without modification, the building offering no comfort beyond shelter from the wind.

"Drill's ready," he said.

"All the fittings?"

"All of them."

She nodded. The nod was acceptance. The nod was trust. The nod was fourteen years of Hector saying the drill was ready and the drill being ready, fourteen years of the word matching the condition, the correspondence between the man's report and the machine's state that is the definition of reliability, the reliability that Ruth depended on and that Hector provided and that was the foundation of their working relationship, the foundation that was not friendship and was not family but was something that did not have a word in English, the relationship between two people who work the same ground and who trust each other's work and whose trust is earned daily and confirmed daily and never spoken because the speaking would diminish it, would convert the trust from a fact into a claim, and facts were stronger than claims, facts were the currency of farming, facts were the thing you could deposit in the ground and withdraw in August.

They drank the coffee. They stood in the barn and drank the coffee and looked at the drill and did not speak because the not-speaking was the conversation, was the two people standing in the presence of the work they would do together and the standing was sufficient, was the communication of two people who understood the day's plan without discussing it because the plan was the same plan they had executed for fourteen years, the plan that said: when the soil is ready, we plant.

Hector had come to the Enger place in the spring of 2012. He had come because Tom placed an ad in the Miles City Star, the classified ad that said: FARMHAND WANTED, EXPERIENCE WITH EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE REQUIRED, 2400-ACRE WHEAT OPERATION, CULBERTSON. The ad was small. The ad was the size of a business card. The ad contained the information that a farmer considered necessary and none of the information that a city employer would have included — no salary range, no benefits description, no mission statement, no promise of growth opportunity. The ad said what the work was and what the work required and the saying was sufficient because the people who read the Miles City Star classifieds were people who understood farm work and who did not need the work explained or the compensation described or the opportunity characterized, the people who would call the number and drive out and look at the place and talk to the man and decide, based on the place and the man, whether the work was worth doing.

Hector called. He drove out. He looked at the place. He talked to Tom. He decided. The deciding took eleven minutes, the eleven minutes of the conversation with Tom in the barn, the conversation that was not an interview but was an assessment, the mutual assessment that two men perform when they meet and when the meeting is about work, the assessment that is conducted not through questions and answers but through observation, through the reading of the other person's hands and posture and the way the other person looks at the machinery, the look that tells a mechanic whether the person looking is a mechanic, the recognition of the shared understanding that does not require words.

Tom offered $42,000 a year. Hector accepted. The acceptance was immediate, was the handshake that followed the offer, the handshake that was the contract, the entire employment agreement contained in the grip of two hands, the grip that said: I will work and you will pay and the work will be honest and the pay will be honest and the honesty is the agreement and the agreement is the handshake and the handshake is enough.

Tom was dead now. Tom had been dead for three years and Hector still worked the Enger place and the working was the same and the working was different, was the same machines and the same fields and the same tasks and was different because the man who hired him was gone and the woman who continued was here and the continuation was the thing, the continuation that Ruth provided and that Hector served, the continuation that was not stubbornness but was fidelity, the fidelity to the land and the work and the man who built the system and the woman who maintained the system and the system itself, which was larger than any person and which would outlast any person and which required, for its maintenance, the daily arrival of a man at 5:45 in a white Dodge Ram with 187,000 miles on the odometer.

Ruth paid Hector $52,000 a year. She had raised his pay three times since Tom died — from $48,000 to $50,000 to $52,000, the raises that were not requested and were not negotiated but were given, were Ruth's recognition that Hector's work had expanded since Tom's death, that Hector now did the work that Tom did and the work that Hector did, the two jobs merged into one because the farm could not afford two full-time employees and because Hector could do both jobs because Hector was capable of both jobs, the mechanical work and the field work and the equipment operation and the maintenance and the daily judgment that the farm required, the judgment that said: this needs doing now and this can wait and this cannot wait and this is the order, the triage of tasks that the season imposed and that the worker performed.

$52,000 was not enough. Ruth knew it was not enough. Hector knew it was not enough. They both knew it the way they both knew the soil temperature and the wheat price and the diesel cost — as a fact, as a number, as the honest accounting of the situation. $52,000 was what the farm could pay. The farm paid what it could and the worker accepted what the farm could pay and the acceptance was not resignation but was understanding, was the understanding of a man who knew the ledger, who knew the numbers, who understood that Ruth could not pay more because the paying-more would come from the farm's margin and the margin was the farm's survival and the survival was the thing that both of them were working to maintain.

He finished the coffee. He set the blue mug on the workbench. He picked up the wrench.

The planting would start when the soil was ready. The soil would be ready when the soil was ready. The waiting was not idleness. The waiting was preparation. The waiting was the greasing of 127 fittings and the checking of forty opener blades and the inspecting of eighty seed tubes and the verifying of hydraulic hoses and the testing of the fan motor and the standing in the barn with coffee and the standing being the readiness, the prepared state, the condition of a man and a machine and a farm that were ready for the season to call them into the field, the call that would come not from Ruth and not from Hector but from the soil, the soil that would reach fifty degrees and that would say, in the language of temperature, the language that the thermometer translated and that the farmer obeyed: now.

Hector was ready. The drill was ready. The season would say when.

He picked up the three-quarter-inch wrench and walked to the tractor. The tractor was the John Deere 9620RX, the track tractor, the machine that would pull the drill, the machine that needed its own pre-season check — the engine oil and the hydraulic fluid and the coolant and the air filters and the track tension and the cab air conditioning, because the cab was where Ruth or Hector would sit for twelve hours a day during planting, the cab that was the office, the workspace, the room in which the work was performed, and the room needed to be functional, needed to provide the air and the visibility and the comfort that twelve hours required, the comfort that was not luxury but was necessity, was the condition that allowed the body to sit and the hands to steer and the eyes to watch and the mind to calculate for twelve continuous hours without the degradation that heat or dust or bad air produced.

He checked the oil. He pulled the dipstick, the yellow handle, the handle that Tom's hand pulled and that Hector's hand pulled, the continuity of the maintenance, the unbroken chain of attention that kept the machine running, that prevented the failure, that held the entropy at bay. The oil was at the full mark. The oil was clean, was the amber of fresh oil, the oil that Hector changed in March, the annual oil change that was the tractor's physical, the assessment of the machine's internal condition that the oil revealed — clean oil meant clean internals, meant the engine was not producing the metal particles that wear produces, meant the bearings were sound and the rings were sealing and the engine would run another season.

He checked the hydraulic fluid. He checked the coolant. He checked the air filters — primary and secondary, the two-stage filtration that the Montana dust required, the dust that was the constant of farming in eastern Montana, the airborne soil that the wind lifted and the machines drove through and the engines ingested and the filters captured, the filters that protected the engine from the land, the irony of a machine that worked the soil being damaged by the soil, the irony that the filters resolved.

He tightened a loose bolt on the cab step. The bolt was a half-inch grade-five, the bolt that held the step bracket to the frame, the bolt that had vibrated loose over the winter, the vibration that was the constant of machinery, the tendency of fasteners to loosen and of mechanics to tighten, the ongoing conversation between the machine's desire to come apart and the mechanic's insistence that it stay together, the conversation that Hector had been having with machines since he was seven years old and standing on a crate in Miguel's shop, holding a wrench, tightening a bolt, learning that maintenance was not repair but was prevention, was the daily act of attention that kept the repair from becoming necessary.

Ruth came back to the barn at 9:00. She came without coffee this time. She came with the soil thermometer, the Reotemp, the eight-inch probe that she had pushed into Section 12 at 6:00 that morning.

"Forty-four," she said.

Forty-four. Six degrees from fifty. Six degrees that the sun would provide if the sun cooperated, if the days stayed warm and the nights stayed above freezing and the ground continued its annual thaw, the thaw that had been occurring since March and that was now, in the first week of May, approaching the threshold, approaching the number that would release the drill from the barn and the seed from the bins and the season from its waiting.

"Getting close," Hector said.

"Getting close," Ruth said.

They stood in the barn. They stood in the barn the way they stood in the barn every morning, the two of them and the machines and the dog and the coffee mugs and the pegboard and the concrete floor that Carl poured and the wrench that Tom held and the system that all of them — the living and the dead, the human and the mechanical, the animal and the agricultural — maintained, the system that was the farm, the system that was the work, the system that Hector Flores drove forty-five minutes every morning to serve.