They Mocked a Black Boy for Stuffing Old Shirts With Straw — Then Blackbirds Hit Every Field but His
Chapter 2
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Darius knew what she wasn't saying. When his grandfather Eli bought this place, a dozen black families farmed this end of the county. Over the years, almost all of them had sold out. The Holloways were the last ones still putting a crop in the ground.Outside, the power line along the county road had gone dark with birds. Hundreds of them. Red-winged blackbirds, grackles, a few cowbirds, packed shoulder to shoulder on the wire, all facing into the wind. Most farmers would have honked the horn or fired a shotgun into the air.Darius opened the notebook:6:52. Wind out of the southwest. Birds on the wire between the third and fifth poles, same as yesterday.He'd been writing it down for a week. They always gathered in the same few places first: the wire, then the strip of cane along the drainage ditch. And before the big flock came down into any field, a small group broke off and went in ahead. If nothing moved, the rest followed.In the margin, he had written one word with a question mark after it:Scouts? He didn't know yet what that was worth.The next evening, a dozen farmers crowded into the scale house at Walter Briggs's grain elevator. A few fields to the south had already been hit, the heads pecked down to bare stems along the edges. Vivian Ashford had a printed map taped to the wall and a rental agreement for eight propane cannons split among the farms that had chipped in."Put them where they cover the most ground," she said. "Blocks over 200 acres first. That's just math."Darius raised his hand. "Could I borrow one for a few days? Whenever one's free?""Moving the whole setup for 42 acres isn't worth the trouble." Vivian didn't even glance at the map.Nobody argued. A couple of men nodded.Darius was at the door when Travis Kemp, Vivian's foreman, said it just loud enough: "That boy's been playing farmer since his daddy passed."Darius turned around. "I'm 20." He walked out.Behind him, Walter said nothing, and that said plenty.In the truck, Darius pulled up the rental company's quote on his phone. One cannon for three weeks plus propane came to almost a thousand dollars. His operating account had $280 in it until harvest.Walter caught him in the gravel lot. "If you're scared of losing it, cut early. I'll find you a slot.""It's not ready, Mr. Briggs. If I cut now, I lose more on the scale than the birds would take.""The slot's there if you change your mind." Walter shrugged like a man who'd given the only advice he had.Next morning, Darius opened the wooden trunk in the back of the shop. His mother had packed his father's work shirts in there in April and never made it to the donation box. Long-sleeved, faded, soft at the elbows. The top one had a patch sewn above the pocket that read Marcus. He held it for a while, then he picked up the whole stack.