Chuck Barstow and John Carson halted their teams as well; Carson turned and looked at the crooked, irregular furrows that lay behind the three plowmen.
"The plows jam because it's old meadow sod," Carson grinned.
He was a lean fortysomething man, with sun-streaks through his light brown hair, and blue eyes. He also owned the property four miles west, where Artemis Butte Creek flowed out into the valley proper and the real farmland began, and he was here as part of a complicated swap of labor, animals, and equipment.
"Hasn't been plowed in a hundred years," he went on as they unharnessed their teams. "Not even been grazed heavy these past forty or more, this bit. Lots of tangled roots, most of 'em thick as a pencil. A big tractor could just rip it all to shreds, but horses: Well, two hundred fifty horsepower against two-nothing, it stands to reason!"
The furrows were roughly along the contour of the sloping meadow, and very roughly parallel; oblong islands of unplowed grass showed between them, and the depth varied as if they'd been dug by invisible land-dolphins porpoising along.
At least there weren't very many rocks to hit around here.
"I thought I knew what hard work was," he said. "No work harder than farmin'. Now I know my granddad knew what hard work was, and I've been kidding myself. He farmed-I operate machinery. Did operate machinery."
They all unhitched their teams, leaving plows and harrow standing where they lay, and led the big animals over beneath the shade of a spreading oak to the north. They brought buckets of water from the creek rather than taking them to it-it was easier to make sure they didn't overdrink that way. The little pool below the waterfall was close there, and she gave it a longing look as she hauled the water.
The thought of stripping off her sweat-sodden clothing and diving in, then standing beneath the falling spray:
Better not, she said. Got to keep going. And Mr. Carson might shock easily. Presbyterians tended to be more cautious about nudity than Wiccans, in her experience.
Juniper banished the image of a whooping dive into the cold water. Instead she uncorked a big ceramic jug-until recently an ornamental sitting on the mantelpiece over the kitchen fireplace in her cabin. It held spring water, cut with cold herbal tea. When you were really thirsty, that quenched better than water alone.
After a swallow she passed it around, trying not to think about fresh lemonade. Dennis took it with a grin, wiping the neck and bowing.
"My thanks, gracious Lady Juniper, High Chief of the Clan Mackenzie, herself," he said.
"Go soak your head, Dennie," she replied, scowling. "Cut that out. This is a democracy. Sort of."
"If only I could!" he said, passing the jug on to John Carson. "Soak my head, that is."
Their neighbor glugged and passed it to Chuck in turn. "Time was an acre was a few minutes' work," he said. "On a tractor, that is! Even if I was towing the rototiller for a truck crop. Now I feel like I've plowed Kansas if I get an acre done in a day."
His mouth quirked: "You know, I had an old three-furrow riding plow in a shed-"
All their ears perked up; then they groaned as he went on: "-but I sold it for scrap instead of making it into a lawn ornament like I'd planned."
The meadowland sloped gently down from the edge of the rise behind her to the lip several hundred yards south. There was the rough first-pass section nearest, the lumpy brown-green quilt of the area that had been plowed twice, then the smooth reddish brown seedbed the disk harrow left. The disks had an automatic neatness built in, chopping and mixing grass and roots and dirt into a light mixed mass. The smooth look of it was sharp contrast to work that depended on the skill of human hands, or the strength of human shoulders.
The rest of the clan were working on the finished section; adults turning over a spadeful of earth at regular intervals, the children behind them dropping in a section of seed potato and a dollop of fertilizer. Some of the children still wore green blazers, much the worse for wear and grime; most worked barefoot and in their knee-shorts.
They'd bury the cut eyes and mound up the earth on the next pass. It wasn't as heavy work as plowing, but it was monotonous; she'd done her share of that, too.
"We're getting it done," she said, almost to herself. "By the Lord and the Lady, I feel like it's aging me a year a day-not surprising, with days that feel like years-but it's getting done."
Now if the weather cooperates and the bugs and blights stay away: We should have an Esbat soon. There are lots of crop-magic spells.
John Carson nodded. "By the time this field is finished, we'll all know what we're doing, a little more at least," he said. "That'll mean my fields go faster, for which I thank you. Not to mention this fall-come November, we have to start planting the winter grains."
"That harrow's yours," Juniper pointed out. "And it's saving us a lot of time. Neighbors should help each other. Not to mention that silage you're giving us. Big horses like these can't work on grass alone."
"Neighbors need to help each other more now more than ever," Carson said somberly. "I don't know what I'd have done without your plow teams, Ms. Mackenzie."
Most of them courtesy of the museum, but let's not mention that, she thought.
"Good of you to take in all those kids," Carson went on. "I've got my brother and his family and a cousin and his, besides those three the Reverend Dixon talked me into, and I had to turn away others-it hurt, but what could I do? Almost wish I'd been a Mormon instead of a Presbyterian- we'd have had more food stored. As it is I slaughtered more of my stock than I liked."
A snort. "Not that it mattered after those bastards in Salem cleaned me out, eh? It leaves the silage for the plow teams, at least."
Just then a thudding of hooves came from the stream-side road. Dennis hefted his ax and lumbered over to the spot where the road emerged from the woods. Sally was there with her bow, seated behind a blind they'd rigged with every art that they could manage. She was the only adult they could spare, and that only because her leg still wasn't healed enough to let her do much work.
Juniper worried about it-it just wasn't safe not to have more people watching, given the number of hungry refugees about-but there was nothing else they could do, just yet. Not keeping careful enough watch might cause a disaster; not planting the crop in time would certainly kill them all.
A rider in blue denim overalls came through; a girl in her late teens, blond hair streaming. She halted for a moment to talk to Dennis and Sally, and then trotted her horse over to the tree.
"Dad!" she said, and then: "Lady Juniper."
Dennis, I am going to kill you with your own ax for starting that Lady Juniper nonsense, the musician thought, but the girl's face looked too urgent to bother with his warped sense of humor.
"There's people headed up here," she said. "We saw them pass our place-we're plowing the old south field, Dad, like you said-and they went right up the creek road. Uncle Jason said I should come right up and tell you."
"How many?" Juniper said quickly.
Could it be a foraging party?
The thought brought a cold chill. That was the latest bright idea of the remnant of the state government, parts of which were still hanging on in Salem. They'd started organizing bicycle-borne townfolk and refugees to go out and requisition food and livestock for issue as rations to the urban population, and the refugee camps- Salem hadn't quite collapsed totally, the way she heard Portland and Eugene had done.
John Carson looked equally frightened. That was how he'd lost most of the considerable herd of cattle he'd had before the Change, that and casual theft by passing scavengers, and the remaining dozen head were grazing on Mackenzie land, for safety's sake.
"Just four, on foot," Cynthia Carson said, and Juniper blew out her cheeks in relief. "They're leading a horse; one woman, three men. No bows or crossbows-just the usual."