'Windmill': A Novel

Please enjoy this free sample chapter from Windmill, Rob Bignell’s stunning debut novel.

Chapter 1

Though dust spiraled in thick furrows off the gravel road then across the vast, barren fields, Peter Steinar hesitated climbing down the windmill. He instead left his father and brother standing below to watch the approaching burgundy-colored car as sunlight and wind burned the land raw in a river of heat.

“Here must be that news reporter now,” said father, beckoning for him.

Peter rolled his eyes but began his descent. Upon reaching the ground, his father handed him a handkerchief. It did little good. Red granules of prairie loam whirled upon the wind like thick swarms of gnats, but the old man blinked slowly. Peter searched for a hint of anticipation in the vacant face, saw only a thick line drooping beneath zombie eyes and skin damp from the swelter.

As the car rolled into the yard, the three men stood in place. Their sweat, acrid like sour milk, hung thick in the air while they stared at the woman driver. The dark shade of a cottonwood hid her features, then the door creaked, and she rose from the car like dawn between mountain crags. She was small with narrow shoulders, yet her blackberry-colored hair fluttered about, filling the horizon. The eyes, a smokey topaz, blended with her creamy complexion. She possessed a thin, sovereign nose. Peter admired her dimples, round and modest in their sweetness. The woman extended a hand to his father. “I’m Abbie Blaire, from the Guthrie County Register,” she said, her voice peaceful, like a strummed harp. “You must be Mr. Steinar.”

Her hand felt warm to Carl. Embarassed, he did not allow his own large, cracked palms to linger. “Carl Steinar,” he said, a hint of richness in his almost whispering voice. “These are my sons, Peter and Lyle.”

She smiled as each sibling nodded in turn then reached for a notepad tucked in the pocket of her blazer. Wind swept back the jacket’s lightened side, and Peter glimpsed the curve of her lithe hips. His throat ached. He had seen her before, had heard her voice.

“So this is the windmill?” said Abbie, gesturing toward the metal pyramid at the yard’s center. Her slender hand broke their stares.

“That’s the windmill,” Carl Steinar said. He rubbed his eyes, the pupils expressionless as a cow’s.

“And it still works?”

“Oh yes, she’s still going,” Carl said, “like a train whistle on a lonely night.”

Abbie’s eyebrows rose and after a silent moment she turned to Peter, hoping for a less enigmatic response. He glanced away, felt shame over his dust-laden face, at the soaked spots stretching beneath his armpits, at his dull, tousled hair. Yet, his father had insisted that the windmill needed oiling, and with Carl Steinar, the old, spindly tower always came first, even if inconveniencing everyone else.

“Maybe we should go inside, where it’s cooler,” Peter said.

At that, Carl and Lyle Steinar sauntered toward the farmhouse, and Abbie found herself standing alone in the hot sun with Peter. “Sure,” she said as grinning.

The arid wind beat steadily against Peter and Abbie as they crossed the lawn. A swing set, its red and white barber pole stripes faded and flaking, sat next to the tree nearest the gravel driveway. Its lone metal swing creaked with each gust. When the boys had reached their teens, the yard and its three cottonwoods, once an adventureland of great games and climbs, became just another chore of constant mowing. Lyle often thought he could get out of that mundane task if the yard somehow became a woods, so sometime during his eleventh year he carefully cut around a seedling centered between the cottonwoods, allowing it to grow. Many times Peter forgot it was there as he had not played in the yard for some time and would walk right over the sapling, its thin but sharp points scratching his wrists. Then he’d paused for a moment, stare at the puny tree, and as breathing the whiffs of fresh wheat aloft the wind, contemplate yanking it out. Peter did not want to cause trouble with his younger brother, though, so he simply held his burning wrist against his mouth, letting body warmth soak the pain and salt of his broken skin.

The wind died as they entered the stuffy house, dark from the drawn curtain and yellowed Cape Cods over the kitchen sink. Boxes and stacks of newspapers lined the walls. Abbie noticed one pile topped by an edition dating back some 15 years. The furniture appeared at least that old as well, and for a moment Peter reproached himself for suggesting they go inside. Sitting at the dining table, he pushed away dirty dishes and an open cereal box, Lyle, his eyes caked with gray dust and belly sticking out even farther than usual, slumped in a chair across from him. Their father lolled into the living room, however, his mouth hanging open as if a senile old man trying to gain his bearings.

Peter only glanced at Abbie, avoided looking directly at her in fear that she’d see the black dirt worn into the hems of his jeans and beneath his fingernails. He thought her to be at most a year or so younger than himself. Then his eyes gazed upon the gray floor; here I am, he thought, a man in my early twenties, and she’s probably already done more things, gone more places, than me.

In the living room, Peter’s father picked up a standing frame picture of his deceased wife, examined it longingly, and gazed at Abbie then again at the picture. He swabbed his eyes once more, and for the first time the nubile reporter noticed his forehead was heavily creased, like an overfolded map. At length, he sat on the sofa, stared toward the gun cabinet.

“Well, let’s begin,” Abbie said, her notepad covering a ketchup stain in the small space cleared by Peter. “How old is the windmill?”

“Oh gosh, almost a century now,” Peter said. “It’s not the first one built on the farm, you know. You see, long ago, each farmer was on his own when it came to supplying water, so great granddaddy dug a deep well and set up a windmill to pump water. That was back in the 1880s maybe. How long ago was it, Father?”

“More than 110 years ago,” Carl Steinar said softly from the living room. “He was a Norwegian immigrant, promised by the railroads that this was a great utopia.” Then he suddenly quieted, as if losing interest, and turned on the television.

Abbie’s mouth parted slightly, but Peter broke in. “Most others in the area were Germans and Swedes, so great- granddaddy often got cajoled about being different,” he said the continued nonchalantly about how the first well wasn’t deep enough so a new windmill replaced it, this time made out of steel, a mighty impressive addition at the time, and the one that sill stood to the day. She noticed a slight twang in his voice, considered it more interesting than the answer. With each passing moment, much about this young farmer intrigued her: He was rawboned, even loose-limbed, she thought, but surrounded with an aura of hardness, much like the old movie star, what was his name? Gary Cooper? Yes, that was it. She thought the little scar above his mouth, barely noticeable when he spoke, endearing. Professionalism, she told herself, professionalism. Reporters do not take a liking to their sources; they simply provide information, that is all. Yet, as scribbling his words down with a fine point pen, she never once stopped looking at him.

“Say, that’s some trick,” he said.

She bit her lower lip lightly. “What is?”

“Being able to write without looking at the page. Aren’t you worried your lines won’t be straight?”

Abbie nervously itched the back of her neck. “I’ve never thought about it, actually…Perhaps you could explain how the windmill works.”

Captivated by her thin fingers, Peter did not speak; he sensed that somehow they had touched him. Abbie’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she glanced at him.

Lyle sat up, loose hair strands falling over his brow. “The wind turned the blades, which in turn cranks a turbine,” he said.

Abbie shifted her attention toward him. “What happens when the wind changes direction?”

Peter cut off his brother. “There’s a fantail that moves the blades so they always catch the wind.”

Lyle drooped as Abbie turned back to peter. Just like my brother, the youngest Steinar thought, always slamming a door in my face. His lips pursed.

Peter explained the windmill’s workings then answered Abbie’s questions about how it still was used on the farm, maintenance they performed on it, and why they bothered to keep it when there were more modern conveniences, and a host of others. Though sometimes Peter stumbled for words, a great patience ran through her gaze, and he had to keep resurrecting the likelihood that her behavior was simply a matter of occupational courtesy and nothing more.

Abbie wanted quotes from the other two Steinars but found neither willing. “Mr. Steinar… Carl–,” she said, looking toward him as a black-and-white western blared from the television. “What does the windmill mean to you, personally?”

He turned around slowly, surprised someone would ask him that. Often he’d thought about it himself, but nothing came from his lips. Abbie watched him struggle, wondered if the deep, crescent rings under his eyes held the answer. In the gray interior of the farmhouse, his normally pale face appeared rough, like rope. He possessed a non-nonsense demeanor, she sensed, maybe one that was a little too hard, like he would sink if tossed into water. Then he spoke slowly, cautiously. “You can see the windmill” – except in the particular strum of his voice he said “wind-meal” – “standing above the farm buildings from a mile away. Isn’t that something?”

Abbie’s eyes narrowed slightly as pondering the answer. She decided not to ask a follow-up. “Well, I think I’ve got everything I need,” she said as standing. “Maybe we could go outside for some photos?”

Peter nodded and stood, but Lyle and Carl remained seated.

She peered at Lyle, who breathed passively. “I’d like the whole family in the picture,” she said.

Lyle rose sullenly. “Come on, Father.”

Outside, a torrid wind swept in wide tracts as the sun hovered above. Peter’s brother and father lagged behind him and Abbie.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” she said to Peter as pulling a camera from her car, where’s Mrs. Steinar?”

“Mrs. Steinar?”

“Your mother?” she said hesitantly. “She should really be in the photo, too.”

Peter leaned against the windmill. “Died in a car accident. She’s been gone for some time now.”

Her face went flush. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

Peter waved her off. “You didn’t know.”

Before either could speak, Lyle and Carl arrived, and almost blushing Abbie quickly lined them up. Behind the three men, the windmill’s paddles chirred in the hot August wind, the orange rust specks shifting against the pure blue sky like the images of a kaleidoscope. The fantails twitched slightly as the wind curved, but the whirring never ceased. Abbie backed up, held a hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright sun. The cloy scent of butter-and-eggs wildflowers wreathed through the air, gliding along the wind, and her hair swept back and leeward, unveiled a soft, peach-colored neck. Peter imagined his cheek curling against it.

*****

*****

*****

Years of toiling had bent Carl Steinar.

As a Woolite commercial played for the fourth time that afternoon on the television, he stared into the empty space of his living room and thought of the determination, of the incredible privation, to which his father and granddaddies held tight so they could survive year after year, just to build the farm. After more than a century of their hard work, it stretched for 1,842 acres about his clapboard farmhouse. His granddaddy had constructed the home during the First World War’s high prices and good times, deliberately designing it so the front door faced the churning windmill that constantly shifted in the ever changing but always present breeze. Just beyond the farmhouse and windmill sat the red barn and crumbling granary, each added following the next great war. Two decades after that, when Carl was just a boy, the pole shed and modern silos were erected, their silver roots glowing in both day and moonlight, as if stars. Surrounding the home farm, broad fields crossed the prairie swells for a mile in every direction. All spring, golden sunshine warmed and irrigation wells moistened the red humus, and by early summer the wind blew in the heady scent of blossoming wheat. Through autumn, those same winds carried the bawling of white-headed cattle let loose to graze upon the dormant crop. Wire fences marked three boundaries of the farm, and to the southwest a shallow creek outlined the fourth side. Along that stream, where the grass never shriveled from the hot winds, lay the remnants of the first Steinar homestead – decayed wood and an ill osage orange tree, it tough- wooded and bushy in branches only.

Carl Steinar had once loved and been proud of his farm. It never meant more to him as during those few years with Gwen in the late Eighties, despite the sliding wheat prices and ever-rising costs conspired to destroy the spread just as blizzards, dust bowls, and locusts had dealt devastating blows to his forefathers. Yet, a cow could be replaced, the soil replenished, and the wheat replanted. It was not so with a wife.

Gwen had grown up on a nearby farm, was a country girl through and through from her first pair of bib overalls as an infant until that fateful hour she ran an errand to town for combine parts. She loved the wind’s sound and hung chimes everywhere to capture it. Through the day and into the night, those hollow bars sang magically, as if fairy dust flung from a wand. Of all the composers she loved, her favorite was the windmill; she’d once said its purling reminded her of a beating heart.

He clicked off the television and sat quietly in the dim room, listening for the windmill’s whir. It was still there, a mother calling softly to her child, even after all of those years.

Rising, he lumbered to the bathroom, his joints aching, the old wood floor creaking. He swiveled the sin faucet onto hot. As the basin filled, he rummaged through the medicine bottles and after-shaves finding a lone razor blade. Even in the ashen light, it glimmered. He held out a wrist, and without blinking, scraped the blade against his flesh.

A drop of blood fell into the roiling water below.

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