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Jeremiah Edison sat on the tractor as it slipped and slid its way down the hill through the gray sheets of rain, he let out a sigh of relief once it reached the bottom. For a second there, he had been sure both he and the old tractor would end up in the creek, but God was smiling on him today.
He slipped the worn gearbox into neutral, and sat looking at the rush of muddy-brown water. The creek was a good four feet above the point of flooding. If he didn't move the trees that were clogging the creek, and flooding it out, then he might as well just sit back and watch a couple more cows drown.
Jeremiah knew cows, pretty much anyhow, and every one that he and Maggie owned were just as stupid as any other cow he'd ever seen. The cows didn't understand flooding, they didn't understand how the water could weaken the banks, and so the big dummies just walked on down to the creek, just like any other day, and got swept away when the bank crumbled under their weight. Three days of rain and four dead cows, and though cows were stupid, they weren't cheap.
Jeremiah sat in the pouring rain and stared at the creek. Normally, the creek was no more than eighteen inches deep at the most. Course normal wasn't what it was today, he thought, and wishin' it was wouldn't make it so. It was his own damn fault, he reminded himself. Two of the trees that were clogging it had been there last summer, and hadn't he promised Maggie he'd take 'em out before fall? He had, but he hadn't, and so here he was in the pouring rain fixin' to half kill himself to get 'em out.
Looked like the best way, Jeremiah thought, might be to try and snag the biggest one right from the bank. He squinted as he shielded his eyes to peer through the rain. One thing was for sure, sittin' on the tractor and thinkin' about it, wasn't gonna get it. Reluctantly, Jeremiah climbed down off the tractor and edged closer to the bank. The rain was coming down hard, but the section he stood upon seemed solid enough. "Probably what the cows thought," he muttered as he moved closer.
He walked back to the tractor, unwound a long section of chain from behind the seat, and walked back to the creek. The top of the bigger tree was sticking a good three feet over the bank, and he was glad that it was. He could see that the water was rising faster, and moving along quicker, and he had no wish to get any closer to it than he had to. Quickly, but carefully, he wound the chain around the tree and pegged the links with an old bolt to hold them. Looks good, and solid as well, he thought as he slipped the other end of the chain over the bucket. He genuinely didn't want to try and turn the tractor around. In fact, he thought, as muddy as the ground was, he'd be damn lucky just to get it back up and away from the creek when he finished.
He gave an experimental tug at the chain, and then climbed back up on the tractor. Carefully, without grinding the gears any more than he surely had to, he shifted into reverse, played the clutch out slowly and brought up the slack in the chain.
"Well God?" He asked, looking skyward, "You keepin' a watch down here? I could sure use a hand about now, Lord. Amen," Jeremiah finished.
He let the clutch out a little further, playing the gas pedal as he did, and let the tractor go to work. The over-sized tires spun, caught, and the tractor began to slowly back up the steep bank, pulling the tree out of the muddy water as it did. Jeremiah released the breath he had been holding, and just as he did the chain snapped in two. Jeremiah barely had time to register what had happened when the old tractor flipped, crushing him beneath it.