Part II
Hayride
The sun fell behind a low wooded hill and drained away what little warmth had clung to the brittle air of the clear December afternoon. Becca and Zach sat in silence in the cooling car, listening to the engine’s metal contract in subtle clicks and absorbing what residual heat lingered in the close space. Zach sat in the passenger seat and watched the side of Becca’s beautiful face, her golden hair flowing over her neck and spreading out across the shoulders of her dark blue down vest—that shimmering hair like a calling to some perfect rest, a balm to every ache of longing. He was here at her invitation and prepared to follow her lead wherever it took them; but at the moment her lead held them motionless in the car parked to one side of the church’s back lot in the gathering twilight. He wondered what she was thinking about, what held her normally animated features so still.
Across the parking lot, two teens—a boy and a girl—broke free from the clutch of bundled up figures blowing on their hands under the lit portico to the large church’s back entrance. This pair raced toward them with their arms outstretched like gliding eagles. Their long, drawn-out shouts of “Bec-ca!” rolled across the empty lot and through the cars laminated glass and padded steel frame.
Becca turned her face toward the swooping teens and laughed. “Duty calls.” She faced Zach and smiled. She retrieved a white knit stocking cap and mittens from the backseat and pulled the cap down over her head till it covered her ears, then slid her hands into the matching mittens. “Are you ready for this?”
Zach could laugh now. “I’m just following the leader.”
“Stay close,” she said, though her voice couldn’t have been more relaxed or self-assured. She opened her door and stepped out into the cold dusk.
The two teens reached her simultaneously and, with their hands joined on one side, crashed into Becca and let their momentum wrap their bodies around hers. The two giggled and shrieked into Becca’s vest. Becca laughed above the blur of their bodies, wrapped her arm around the girl’s neck like a scarf and gave the boy’s tow-headed scalp a quick tussle.
“Where’ve you been?” the girl asked.
“Why’d you park over here?” the boy panted, his words accompanied by frosty breaths.
“To give y’all a chance to run off some of that steam!” Becca shrieked and did a quick twirl with the two still holding onto her and spinning outward from her center.
The boy finally let go and waved toward the far end of the parking lot where a tractor and a wagon were waiting. “Come on, Becca. John has the tractor started and he says he’ll only stay out till his toes get froze.”
“And he says they’re half-froze already,” the girl added as she tugged on Becca’s near arm.
“You leave John to me—he’ll drive us long as we want.”
The girl said, “He likes you.”
The boy shouted, “Everybody likes Becca,” before racing ahead toward the tractor and wagon.
Becca turned to Zach standing on the far side of the car, shrugged in hopeless surrender, then smiled broadly, her face aglow with a light and warmth to rival the gone sun’s power, before stumbling along behind the girl’s furiously tugging arm.
Zach could only nod agreement and follow in that whirlwind’s wake.
They were at Becca’s home church on a clear and cold Sunday afternoon a few weeks before Christmas chaperoning a youth-group hayride through the quiet neighborhood streets around the church. Becca was the group’s college-aged advisor and had agreed to lead the hayride back early in the fall, before she and Zach had started dating. She could’ve easily fulfilled this obligation without bringing Zach along, but decided earlier in the week to invite Zach—to give him a break from his reading-period rigors and share with him an important if fading aspect of her BZ life; that is, before Zach.
By the time Zach caught up, Becca was standing beside the tractor tire almost tall as she talking up to a man in his late twenties sitting on the open-air seat with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on the tire as he leaned toward Becca to hear her above the purr and pop of the Deere’s barely muffled two-cylinder engine. From across the parking lot Zach had identified the tractor’s make and model from its appearance and distinctive engine noise. His dad once owned the same model, and its widely spaced piston strokes made a singular popping sound while idling. He also recognized from afar that the tractor and wagon were from a “gentleman’s” farm, with the bright green and yellow paint of the tractor and smooth-planed boards of the wagon too perfect to be off a working farm with its constant demands on limited resources of time and money.
“Now, Miss Coles, a loop around Wilson and onto Springvale should be trip enough to get everyone froze solid as an ice cube,” the tractor man said from beneath his plaid wool cap with the side flaps pulled down over his big ears.
“Mr. Abernathy, I had my heart set on one last ride around Wedgewood before the houses start going up,” Becca shouted back over the popping of the tractor.
“Too far, Miss Coles. Give all these young’uns p-neumonia before the holidays and what will their parents say about that?”
Becca laughed. “Mr. Abernathy, these young’uns got God’s own furnace burning inside them.” She glanced back at Zach and gave him a quick wink before turning to look up at the tractor man again. “I’ll be forever in your debt if you would take us through the Wedgewood development.”
John shook his head in petulant resignation. “At your service, Miss Coles; at your service.”
“Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.” She brushed his near hand with her mittened one before turning to Zach and taking his hand to lead him to the wagon.
By then the clutch of youth—fourteen in all—that had been huddled under the portico had meandered across the parking lot in groups of threes and fours and were climbing onto the wagon and staking out spots on the bales of clean straw arranged around the perimeter. Two boys were tossing fistfuls of straw into one girl’s long brown hair as she screamed in protest but made no effort to flee their attentions. Another couple—they couldn’t have been more than fifteen—were already snuggled together in a corner at the back of the wagon. Random others sat on bales and shivered or stood atop the straw with their arms extended toward the rose-colored sunset.
Zach lifted Becca onto the wagon with his hands holding her hips, then she reached down and pulled him up beside her as he used the wagon’s hitch as a step. The two stood at the front of the wagon facing the mix of motion and stillness displayed on the platform that seemed to float above the pavement now almost invisible in the deepening shadows.
Becca raised her free hand above her head, the white mitten catching thin rose-colored light and radiating like a beacon. Almost instantly the kids stopped their rough-housing and babbling and faced her in silence. “Thank you,” she said in a firm natural voice that seemed louder and clearer in the crisp twilight with the tractor popping in the background beneath their new perch. “First things first—I trust you’ve all availed yourselves of the church’s facilities, since there will be no facilities available on the hayride.”
“Yes, Becca,” the kids responded in unison.
“Very good. Now I’ve asked Mr. Abernathy to take us for a loop around the development at Wedgewood and he has generously agreed. Are you all properly attired for a ride of this duration?”
“Yes, Becca.”
Becca let Zach’s hand go and did a slow review of the teens arrayed on the bales. They all seemed reasonably dressed for the ride—all in down vests or parkas or thermal sweatshirts, some with gloves, some with scarves and knit caps. She returned to Zach and caught his eye (and his heart) with a subtle smile and nod that only he could see (assuming John wasn’t looking their way). She then turned again to her cohort. “This is my friend from school, Zach Sandstrom. He has kindly agreed to assist me in my efforts to keep you rabble-rousers in line. I trust you will treat him with respect and kindness.”
“And not throw me off the wagon,” Zach added
quickly.
Becca turned and playfully punched his shoulder.
Zach feigned losing his balance and stumbling toward the edge of the wagon before righting himself at the last second.
“Only Becca can push Zach off the wagon,” one boy shouted.
“No one can push anyone off the wagon,” Becca said sternly then added, “Please.”
“Yes, Becca,” they all responded.
“Anything else before we set out?” Becca asked.
“No, Becca.”
“Then let us pray,” she said and bowed her head. “Dear God, thank you for this beautiful day and this beautiful night. Please keep us safe on this journey. Amen.” She lifted her eyes to the now turquoise western horizon before facing John and saying, “Mr. Abernathy, we are at your disposal.”
John pulled back on the hand-controlled accelerator. Small flames leapt from the silver muffler pointed toward the emerging stars. The popping of the cylinders sped up and blurred into a single constant roar. John eased the clutch out and the tractor lurched forward, towing the wagon behind. Becca and Zach, steadying each other against the sway and creak of the wagon, took short steps across the length of the wagon before turning and sitting clumsily on an open spot in the bales at the middle of the back, the prime seat clearly saved for them by Becca’s adoring charges. At first Becca left a space of several inches between her leg and Zach’s but gradually closed that gap over several minutes till her jeans were touching his, their hips and shoulders soon pressed tight. They swayed as one from side to side, forward then back, with the gentle rocking of the wagon.
Once the ride was underway, Becca felt no further need to address the group but simply watched them with a caring attention that was no less alert to their needs for its natural ease. She knew all of them well, had been a group member with the older ones before graduating and going away to college, and had gotten to know the younger kids while chaperoning two outings last summer. She wasn’t an ardent church-goer, but she loved these kids and enjoyed helping them through the challenges of adolescence. In return, each of them would’ve listed Becca as the first older person they would call on in a time of personal need. Zach saw all this in under five minutes of observation; further, he knew Becca had no idea how much she meant to these kids—which was exactly why she meant so much to them.
As they left the church parking lot and entered the quiet residential street, John switched on the tractor’s headlights and flashers, sending an arc of white light before the tractor, flashing orange around the tractor and its driver, and flashing red directed back toward the bales and the wagon and its passengers. The kids used this humble event as an excuse to release a loud cheer, then one of them started singing “Jingle Bells” and soon all seventeen riders (even curmudgeonly John) were singing at the top of their lungs out into the dimming evening. Porch lights flickered on as they rolled along the street, and a few hardy souls stepped outside their doorways and cheered or waved or sang along.
A middle-aged woman in sweatpants and a housecoat jogged down off her porch and out to the road and handed one of the boys a large pottery cookie jar loaded with cookies. “Merry Christmas,” she shouted as the wagon rolled down the street.
Becca turned and waved. “Thank you, Mrs. Johnson.”
All the kids paused in their singing and echoed, “Thank you, Mrs. Johnson!”
Becca shouted to the fading figure. “I’ll leave the cookie jar at the church.”
Mrs. Johnson’s reply, if there was one, was lost beneath the tractor’s roar and the playful hubbub of singing and shouting.
A half-mile farther down the road, past several inviting but short cul-de-sac turn-offs and after the carol singing had progressed from “Jingle Bells” through “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Deck the Halls,” John turned the tractor and wagon into a freshly paved but deserted street labeled as Wedgewood by a lit plywood sign, the fanciful script letters in Wedgewood blue on a white background. The street was fully paved, the traffic lines painted, the curbs and gutters installed, the sidewalks and driveway turnouts poured; but there were no houses. For the first quarter mile, streetlights lit their way and shined down on wooden signs in front of open treeless lots—future home of the Bernard family, the Robertsons, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Leslie. For some unknown reason, the kids switched from secular carols to sacred ones after they’d turned into the unoccupied development; and they lowered their voices from their prior shouting to offer high-pitched but melodious versions of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Away in the Manger,” as if the sacred songs were somehow more appropriate for these deserted environs, might better appeal to the spirits of farmers past still trapped in the torn up soil, or of families future implied in the signs’ hope and promise.
The streetlights ended, the last one’s glow following them into the night like a trailing puppy too young and short-legged to keep up; then they rode on into the dark, their path lit only by the tractor’s headlights and the orange and red flashers. This limited light revealed unadorned poles reaching to the night sky, signposts sunk in the ground but no owners yet committed, sidewalks and driveway turnouts formed but not yet poured. The unfamiliar third verse of “Away in the Manger” dwindled away along with the streetlight, and the entourage continued in a deafening silence marked only by the tractor’s unbroken roar. In this new and surreal realm of darkness and cold and red flashing light, a blonde girl with her face and head wrapped in a long knit scarf that covered all but her eyes broke free from a clutch of girls at the head of the wagon and rushed to the back and sat beside Becca opposite Zach. She leaned her head into Becca’s chest and Becca pulled her close with her free arm. Then another of the younger kids, a boy this time, drifted back from his band of mates and sat at Becca’s feet with his legs crossed on the hard oak boards of the wagon’s platform. Becca took her knit cap off and placed it on the boy’s bare, crew-cut head.
She said to Zach in a low voice barely audible above the tractor, “This is Daphne,” nodding toward the scarf-wrapped child. “And this is Kendall,” she added while touching the boy’s shoulder. “They’re both first-year members of our Youth Group.”
Zach nodded. “The pleasure is all mine.”
Neither child looked at him, but Kendall said to the night, “Is it O.K. if we share Becca with you?”
“More like—can I share her with you?”
Becca laughed. “Plenty of me to go around.” She pulled the two youngsters closer—to warm them, to warm her.
Zach found a gap between her sweatshirt sleeve and her mitten and lightly brushed her wrist, the skin warm and incredibly soft.
As they pushed farther into the development, the combination of deepening dark and diminishing signs of progress made it seem to Zach that they were going back in time. He leaned over and whispered this thought into Becca’s ear, then added, “If we go far enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to catch a glimpse of a brontosaurus munching swamp grass at the fringe of the tractor’s lights.”
Becca laughed. “Be a mighty cold brontosaurus.”
“A wooly mammoth then, with a stalking long-toothed tiger.”
“And Neanderthals with clubs.”
“We can hope.”
Becca’s smile faded. “But don’t come back here next year.”
“Don’t worry; I won’t. Probably couldn’t find it even if I wanted to.”
“What—no desire to settle in Pleasantville with a wife and two-point-five kids?”
Zach grinned. “Got all the family I need right here.”
Becca nodded. “Then let’s never leave.”
“O.K. by me, but I’m guessing your tractor man might have something to say about that.”
As if on cue, the rolling ensemble ground to a slow halt where the pavement ended and switched to gravel. The tractor’s roar dwindled to its earlier purr and pop. John stood amidst his orange flashing and faced the wagon from his lofty perch, looking all the world like a backwoods politician about to deliver a s
tump speech. “Froze enough yet, Miss Coles?” he intoned.
Becca remained seated amongst her embracing fold. “Ask them,” she said and waved her free hand over the attentive teens.
“Farther,” they all shouted.
“The road turns to gravel,” John pleaded.
“Farther,” the kids shouted again.
“I believe you have your answer, Mr. Abernathy,” Becca said.
John shook his head and mumbled something about needing a weather canopy before sitting and putting the old tractor in low gear for its crawl over the rougher gravel trail.
Before he revved the engine and let the clutch out, Becca suggested, “Let us all thank Mr. Abernathy for his patience and support.”
The oldest boy, a high-school senior named Rick with long dark hair and thin sideburns, jumped atop one of the bales and shouted, “Three cheers for Mr. Abernathy.”
Everyone joined in—“Hip-hip-hooray. Hip-hip-hooray. Hip-hip-hooray.”
The tractor man took the tractor out of gear, faced them again, took off his cap, and gave a deep bow. He then returned to his task of guiding them deeper into the development, farther back in time.
With their progress slowed to a crawl and the wagon swinging from side to side and rocking in the ruts, their entourage donned an aspect of vulnerability and the full night a kind of foreboding couched in its star-studded, chill indifference. They might’ve been pilgrims in route to a Himalayan monastery or colonists buried in the hold of a frigate on the Atlantic blank except for the pungent smell of the tractor’s exhaust and the silhouettes of trees now etched against the sky to either side. Even the older youth, in the full gale of their hormonal firestorms, fell silent and still in mute testament to the solemnity of the moment and the setting. The tractor pushed on into the dark. Pine trees closed in from either side, blocking the stars, shading what little natural light pressed down from above. Zach summoned in his mind part of the Milton he’d memorized for a forthcoming exam:
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,
Through Eden made their solitary way.
Then the trees suddenly parted and the pilgrim train entered a large clearing with nothing but sky above. John directed the train to the middle of the broad clearing and stopped, powered the engine down, then turned it off. The sudden stillness was almost too much to bear, though the lights kept flashing, winking back in colors to the white steady light of the stars.
“End of the road, Miss Coles,” John said in a voice volume high as if still in competition with the tractor’s motor.
“So I see. Where are we, Mr. Abernathy?”
“Future clubhouse and pool, Miss Coles, to be built once the development is over fifty percent sold.”
“And we just passed through—?”
“Golf course, Miss Coles—cart path between the ninth and eighteenth fairways, I believe.”
“To be built when?”
“Same time as the clubhouse, Miss Coles—fifty percent sold.”
“And when might that be?”
“Soon—my mother is in real estate and she says they passed forty percent before Thanksgiving.”
“So this is the last Christmas it’ll be wild here.”
“Hardly wild, Miss Coles. But it’ll be getting a lot tamer and soon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.” Becca stood slowly, releasing Zach’s hand and easing from under Daphne and around Kendall. “Can we kill the lights for a minute, Mr. Abernathy?”
John switched off the tractor’s lights and flashers and it was instantly and massively black. Several of the youth gasped and one girl shrieked then shouted, “Michael!” Daphne slid across the open bale and pressed up against Zach’s warm side.
After a minute, Zach’s eyes adjusted to the dark and he could see the outlines of the kids seated on the bales, the silhouette of John on his tractor seat, and the head and shoulders of Becca standing in the middle of the wagon and making a slow 360-degree turn in the dark, taking in either the imperiled woods or her timid charges or both, it was impossible to say which. Then she stopped her slow spin with her face, aglow from some hidden light, pointed directly at Zach. “I don’t know what presents y’all will receive this Christmas,” she said in a quiet reverent voice. “But I doubt any of you will receive a gift more special than this pause in this place.” She stood at their center a moment, as if contemplating saying more; then she walked in silence with short cautious steps to the back of the wagon, lifted Kendall to a seat next to Daphne, and sat at the feet of the three lined up on that bale. She tilted her head back onto Daphne’s knees to take in fully the heavenly panorama unfurled above.
Then Kendall began in an unwavering soprano—Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.
The rest of the pilgrim voices soon chimed in.
Zach’s far hand found its dark path to the cool cheek of his Christmas gift, more perfect than this Eden on this perfect night.