By James Buchanan

Rusted bike chains clatter as the four boys round the first bend on the double track that cuts through one of a string of hayfields. The grass, clover and alfalfa are tall for early summer and already half the height of the smallest boy. The sun has burned hard for a week, calling them from their classroom and browning the drooping brushes of grain. The bristly tops of grain catch a warm breeze rippling through the field. None of the boys talk. All are intent on their mission in the summer of 1953.

The track runs round field after field cutting through breaks in stone walls that fence each farmer’s field. Trees grow up through the ancient stones piled to form granite boundaries. The boys’ wiry young legs pedal furiously through a space where wooden slats once formed a gate in the wall. With great stoicism, the stones listen to the whiz of spokes and the clatter of chains and pay ne’er a glance. Over the field across the browning hay-grasses barn swallows and field sparrows dive and climb like kites. Grasshoppers, surprised by the violence of the on-rushing posse of four on their clanging steeds, leap for life and limb. Some of their small, hard bodies slam into the steel mudguards of the unforgiving beasts causing a subtle ting to vibrate through the air.

Not a sound do the boys make; the mission all consuming, they are silently called forth. However, should they look from their path they would see the quiet sloping outline of a gentle mountain through the clutching haze. They would likely look through the bouncing singing field, over mice and birds and flies and grasshoppers to see the smallest boy’s father riding his own coughing, steel steed through the high chaff and bristle of a hayfield let go to where it is nearly nettlesome bother. They also would see his father’s body lurch with the iron body of the beast as it falters and fails.

The father-farmer swore and damned the tractor to hell knowing that leaving the browning grain under the sun – a delay, any delay – will cost his farm more than he can afford. If the smallest boy looks to see it happen, the 12-year-old son would know that today his mission to the river should be co-opted by his family’s need. He would push back on the pedal of his rusted Schwinn skidding the rear tire to a stop. Obliging his comrades with a frown and a wave, he would peddle his clanging little bike to aid his father.

But not today; the first swim of the year is sacrosanct in its cause for such intensity of thought and purpose. The first swim in the clear waters of the river is the highest celebration of summer and the boys’ freedom. Later in the summer the boys will view this trip as idly as swatting at a horse fly; it will be a joyful routine, but today it is a challenge textured with a tense solemnity.

Peddling down the track their minds are occupied with questions of a serious nature. Had the spring flood of melted snow dislodged a boulder upstream, pushing it into the pool just below the jumping rock? Is it lying hidden by the aerated water falling from on high into the pool?

Or, had a tree with broken, spiked limbs been submerged and is now hidden under the bubbling effervescence. Future dives swinging from bending birches and tumbling from river boulders would be without such tense mystery, but today the first of them to dive would be the one to find out what the spring thaw had brought.

Standing by his dead beast, the smallest boy’s father sees the lack of rain had dried more than the field and his crops. A rubber gasket in his tractor, worn and forgotten, dried and cracked allowed too much oil to seep through. A man, he always rides looking forward, thinking about long days and seeds sown and harvested, prosperity and security, but this day the life’s blood of his mechanical beast-of-burden slowly slipped past a small, forgotten penny part. If that father’s boy stops for but a moment to look at a wave of breeze pass through the brown brushes the boy would hear the bang and sudden silence of an engine seized and spoiled. And he would hear the shouts of his father.

But, the smallest boy does not look. He does not hear. He follows his friends in the silence of a hot afternoon on their first ride out to the river. Like dolphins weaving before the splashing bow of a ship the boys toss, springing their bikes over rocks and butterfly hills. Occasionally they pass a hay rake or tedder left in a corner of a field. Choked by tall grass and clinging weeds, these implements look more like a home for rabbits than a tool for farmers. A winter spent waiting, these farmer’s tools will wait longer, growing more rust, unaware that their draft horse has just died.

The double track turns sharply left but the boys break slightly right; up, then over the piled stone border coasting on planks bridging the wall. One, two, three, and four they rattle over, swerving just before a fallen stone from the order of a New England wall.

A single-track path leads up the hill through a clutch of white pines. The darkness in the shadow of trees slows the boys almost as much as the low, threatening grumble of a rushing wash of living water that comes from the other side of the rise. Their moment comes closer, weakening their will.

Beyond earshot now, the boy’s father stands beside the unmarred body of the dead tractor. Quiet now in its repose after the life of it fetched up hard. Caught not tending his world the smallest boy’s father looks hopefully for an excuse. The trail of bent grass behind him betrays the truth of the untended rubber gasket that led to the fatal attack of the heart of the engine. Alone in the sun he faces the hard honesty of a life spent looking forward with not one look back.

For the rest of the summer the farmer’s boy must leave behind his thoughts of days spent at the river. He must say good-bye to the waters and his friends and look forward with not one look back.

Over a smooth bed of rust-brown needles the boys pedal upward. Silent still, they know the matter of what lies in the bubbling water will soon be known. Yet not one boy calls to reserve his right to be first. The covenant of calling dibs has not been signed and will not be sought. Up the steep bank, the air cools as they draw closer. One and two and three and the smallest boy stops on the crest the hill and looks down into the pool being fed from on high. The water is clear and river stones are easily seen ringing the landing of falling water from a high rocky ledge. Bubbles rise into froth; for a person to fall into them, the body learns the lightness of the soul. To be first, though, after a snow-filled winter will be the test of one boy’s will.

Laying their bikes down, the boys begin the short, steep walk along the well-worn path to the river. Spring’s streams of melting snow have worn through the soft dark earth of fallen pine leaving a sandy wash. Webs of sticks with trapped debris score a trail of cutbacks zig zagging down toward the river; the boys jump and follow the sandy trickle. The head of the falls is a massive slab of granite worn smooth from millennia of water leaping from its edge. A stand of birches bent and bowed from winter’s ice lean out listening to the river that runs through the heart of an Eastern hardwood forest. A hundred feet long and seventy-five wide, there is ample room on the open slab for each to find his spot and address his moment, should it come. The smallest lets his sneakers fall from his feet. Quietly intent to test his will.

Careful footsteps to the wooded bank, the smallest boy chooses four sticks. Three long, one short. He holds them before the largest boy. A long stick is drawn. The second boy grabs quickly, and his too is long. The third boy worries over his choice. He has never led. In the back of his head his mother’s ubiquitous warning rings – "your impatience will see you someday dead." The small boy tips his hand while looking into the other kid’s eyes. A glint in the eye, the third boy sees the moment; the one he picks is long too.

His draft horse fallen, the farmer touches the hot metal where the beast’s heart and valves lie still. There is no doubt; the blood runs milky brown. His mower stands idle with fresh cut strands of hay hanging like wicker webs off its reels. A swath cut twice, and maybe half around his fortune in long-stemmed fields of grain forms a track that leads to where he stands alone, looking forward, knowing what must be done. God seems less arbitrary today; the man’s will lies slain. He has gotten down, and, looking forward, knows he must walk the rest of the way.

Intently watched by the other boys, the farmer’s small son steps to the precipice; three feet out and ten feet down is all the distance he must travel before he finds what lies beneath the foam and froth. Leaping out — water falling from the ledge roars by his side — his first step forward into the unknown settles him softy into the nascence and solid granite river bottom.

Pushing from the river bottom the boy propels his body through the foaming splash back to the reverberating world above the river. His smile greets the other boys as their explorer swims to shore. And, seeing his lead, they fly forward, one and two and three, the first swim of 1953.

James Buchanan is a freelance writer living on the Seacoast of NH. He is currently writing a nonfiction book for MIT Press and is working on a collection of short stories. To contact him please send email to qtip@ttlc.net.