Broken [In Revision 2023]

Chapter Three - Better Late Than Never

Caleb sprinted for the sanctuary of his truck, from temptation, from the eyes of the rumour mill still circling the yard on the back of the oversized tanker. He hit the accelerator hard. Dust and grit churned under the tyres. Finally, they bit, and the truck shot backwards. The gears argued before giving him the forward propulsion he required. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, that was too close.

The speed limit was the least of his worries as the minute hand ticked ever closer to the hour. Heads turned in his direction as he left Main Street, his truck kicking up a storm of dust as the tyres met the old dirt road. Three minutes late.

He ran across the yard and into the milking parlour. The machines already humming as his father worked down the line of five with his teat dip.

"You're late." Leo didn't take his eyes off the job.

Caleb set to work checking the first few squirts of milk. "I was up at the Cavalier's, they have a new tank..."

"The Benson's got it." Leo straightened up, his vertebrae clicking in quick succession. "I take it you were talking about the old one. It's a fool's errand to try and get Andrew to lend any equipment to low class now that Cyan is in the limelight."

"I never said I was successful," Caleb muttered, moving on to the last cow.

"I hope you had more success with the shopping?"

Caleb fitted a cluster to the first cow's udder, "The seed is already loaded in the hopper..."

"You'll get it done tomorrow before the rain."

"It would do better with some nutrition in the soil."

Expecting a short reply, Caleb looked up. Leo was gone. He cursed his father under his breath, cursed the community and longed for something in his pathetic life to change for the better. With the 25 cows milked he was finally free. Free to eat his lukewarm dinner and go to bed and start all over again.

Caleb didn't dream, he never did since moving to the community, he was always too tired. All too soon, before the first trace of pink haloed the horizon, he was out in the barn and working his way through the chores.

"Don't forget we are going over to Aunt Kit's this afternoon," Carmine called from the back door.

A wave of grey clouds loomed in the distance as he attached the harrow to the tractor. A chill wind coursed down the mountain forcing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. He shivered and put the tractor in first gear. The ruts did a number on his back as he hurried around the east field, knocking down and breaking up the crusted cowpies left from the last grazing.

As he returned the tractor to the barn, he spotted his father with his head buried in the carcass of the slurry spreader. Two toolboxes had spilt their contents into the overgrown grass. Caleb went the long way around and hopped onto the ATV before his father could extricate himself from the rusted shell.

He was three-quarters done when the clouds lifted. The sun started to scorch the nape of his neck and exposed forearms. A figure loomed at the gate. He finished the row, killed the PTO and rode toward his father.

"Everything alright?" He stepped off the quad bike.

"We need to head over to Kit's soon." Leo surveyed Caleb's work. He furrowed his eyebrows at the churned-up patches of ground and unpulled weeds at the edge of the pasture.

"I'm almost finished here..." He pointed to the last third of the field but his father cut him off.

"You need to get washed up and changed." Leo turned his back on his son and started walking.