It was an ideal day for gardening, warm but not too warm because of the nice breeze blowing in from the north. Sunny but not too sunny because of the veil of hazy clouds high in the sky. Tim had spent the morning planting several rows of acorn squash, pumpkins and green peppers in his quarter-acre vegetable garden. With that chore finished he could begin waging the summer-long war against weeds every gardener fights every growing season.
He went to the shed, its green steel roof and dirty white walls covered in scabs of reddish-brown rust, and removed the sea green concrete patio flagstone leaning against the broken door, holding it in place. He had decided, long ago, doing this was more convenient, every time he wanted to enter and then replacing it every time he left, than actually repairing the door. And he was not about to change his mind.
Rummaging around inside, he muttered obscenities under his breath and told himself, like he did every spring, he really needed to take an hour or two and get it organized. To locate his angle hand weeder and long-handled pull hoe (four-inch blade) he had to move a broken-down leaf blower, a string-less, gas-powered weed whip and an electric chain saw with a burned-out motor. It had been at least 10 years since any of these power tools for his yard had been operable. He had no intention of repairing these and several other implements yet he refused to discard any of them.
His gardening gloves, after 15 more minutes of crashing, curses and banging, were finally discovered in a cupboard with spray paints and varnishes. The cranky old loner, with no friends or family and no visitors in at least three years, was nevertheless convinced somebody had moved them from the shelf he always put them on in late fall after the harvest was finished.
With weeder and hoe in either hand, he left the shed tripping, inevitably, over the inch-high threshold. The weeds surrounding the cabbage, cauliflower, leeks and spinach he had planted earlier in the season were attacked with savage determination. After two hours, every unwanted bit of greenery had been annihilated.
All of the chopping and pulling had exhausted Tim. Sweat was coursing down his face and stinging his eyes as he returned the tools to the shed. He was feeling light-headed and didn’t notice the numbness creeping along his left arm. When exiting he again stumbled over the threshold this time falling to his knees. It took him almost a full minute to struggle to his feet. He forgot to close and prop the shed door with the flagging stone but did notice his old friend John, who had been standing sentinel over the garden for at least 20 years, was in serious need of some new stuffing.
Staggering a bit, he went around the side of the shed and picked up a bale of hay by the binding twine. The grip with his left hand wasn’t very good but he was able to more than compensate with his strong right hand and arm as he carried the bale, stumbling and staggering, over to the scarecrow.
Apologizing first for the impending rough handling, Tim took ol’ John off the pine cross, gray with age and starting to splinter. After carefully laying the tatterdemalion figure on the ground, he stuffed the ragged, faded, hand-me-down overalls and flannel shirt with fistfuls of hay until the scare-bird was full and firm in all of its limbs and torso. He carried on his usual one-sided conversation with his silent buddy chatting about the weather, how much this year’s garden would produce and what he planned to do with the bounty and, of course, concerns about depredations by birds, deer, rabbits and those pesky little six-legged critters. More hay replenished its hands (a pair of worn-out garden gloves from 20 years ago) and feet (a pair of wool hunting socks with holes in the toes and heels). The head—a used potato sack with eyes, nose and mouth drawn on in permanent marker—was removed, opened and crammed with more fodder, tied-off, and then reattached with safety pins to the shirt collar. As a final touch, he placed the ancient straw hat—brim frayed and crown with any number of holes—back on its head.
While lifting and hooking the straw man back to its accustomed place on the center post, he was struck in the chest by a 2,000-gram straight peen hammer swung with the mighty thews of Beltane the Smith. Crumpling slowly, sucking for oxygen, he was dead by the time he hit the fecund loam of the garden.
***
After a week of decomposition and sustenance for two coyotes, what was left of Tim was being picked over by a pair of large, dominant crows who seemed to work in concert.
These two old friends stayed around for a couple of days finding more bits and pieces of Tim. When not feeding, they were usually perched on either side of the crosspiece of the post on which John was stationed—alone and disconsolate, shoulders slumped and head hanging. Disdaining the (utterly misnamed) scarecrow, they would caw back and forth and drive off any lesser crows who would fly by with thoughts of snacking from Tim’s remains at the foot of the cross.
***
The morning was cool with tendrils of gray fog lurking along the ground. It had been two weeks since his comrade’s death. Time is the surcease of all sorrow and so the straw frightener, ever faithful and dutiful, finally lifted his head and surveyed the garden he had been watching over for more than two decades and found it was plagued with weeds. This would never do. Tim would be so disappointed.
Gathering strength he never knew he had in the stems of his stuffing, the straw being, lugubrious but determined, raised his arms, wrapped them over the crosspiece and lifted off the hook in the back panel of his overalls and lowered himself to the ground.
After a moment of leaning against the post, finding its sea legs as it were, John knelt down and rearranged as best he could the clothing put to disarray by the carrion-eaters. In whispery tones like wind through a wheat field, he rattled on about recent weather, how good the squash was doing with no sign of vine borers but the green peppers were looking poorly from cutworm damage, and early predictions on harvest amounts for the various plantings. During this one-sided discussion, he was taking hay from the bale and stuffing it along the skeletal remains in Tim’s tattered shirt and overalls until the limbs and torso were fat and solid. Using twine from the bale, it tied the garden gloves and boots to Tim’s frame. As a final touch, it took off its battered straw hat and placed it on Tim’s skull.
The old scarecrow lifted the new scarecrow and placed it on the cross. Stalking over to the shed, John, after some banging around and cursing, retrieved the hoe and weeder. Upon exiting, he stumbled over the shed’s threshold. Regaining balance, John closed the door and leaned the green stone against it, then returned to the overgrown garden. Slowly and methodically, he began waging the summer-long war against weeds every gardener fights every growing season.
This story previously appeared in In Medias Res: Stories from the In-Between.
Edited by Erik Homberger
M. Kelly Peach lives in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. His author's website is mkellypeach.com; X (Twitter) is @MichaelPeach and his work is forthcoming in: Suicid(al)iens, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Soul Ink, Vol. 2, and a novella, The Death of Tintagiles Death, through Translucent Eyes Press.