In “The Harvest,” a young couple celebrates the purchase of their first farmhouse. But the story opens with a warning from the Indigenous owner: do not till the south-west corner of the field. Russel, the new owner, dismisses the caution, and in doing so shrugs off any responsibility for what lies beneath the ground. His disregard literalizes the colonial gesture of erasure: extracting abundance while denying the weight of history and accountability.
Written by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and appearing first in the anthology, Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction, published by Kegedonce Press, this narrative renders horror as something unearthed and tangible. In prose that tips from lush into cannibalistic, Adler shows how settlers’ celebrations of plenty are built on desecrated ground, and that for Indigenous communities horror is not spectral but real, ongoing in collective memory and lived existence.
— Raaza Jamshed for Guernica Global Spotlights
“Don’t till the south-west corner of the field.” The old man signs the contract with gnarled fingers bent with age, injuries or arthritis. All three.
Russel leans in and signs with a flourish, long looping letters underscored with a squiggly dash. Mckenzie leans and signs with somewhat less pizzazz, her letters coiled and neatly contained on the line below Russel and Eamonn’s.
Yeeees! Russel and Mckenzie kiss.
“I can’t believe we bought a house!” Mckenzie’s belly brushes a flute glass and knocks it from the counter. Crrraaack. All three flinch as the glass hits the linoleum and shatters on the kitchen floor with a smash. The newlyweds burst out laughing. Mackenzie apologizes; her hips have grown wider with the pregnancy she explains. The corner of her eyes crinkle. Blond wisps escape from the clasp of her ear.
“They’re yours now.” Mr. Eamonn shrugs, shoulders slumped, spine bowed, white eyebrows like an owl. “The glasses, everything in the cupboards. The lawn mower in the garage. Anything we didn’t take is yours to keep or give away. We’ve cleared away most of the junk and most everything else, but figured you might appreciate a few essentials.”
Thump! Cluunk. Thumpp.
All three look to the brown water-stained white ceiling. Russel scrunches an eye, head tilted as he listens, brown hair slightly disarranged. “Is their someone else upstairs?”
Eamonn waves a hand downward. “Paah! Damned racoons. Dug a hole in the shingling again I suspect. But my shoulder’s bad.” He rolls a shoulder. “Haven’t been able to make it up to the ruff to repair it. Might want to cut down the pines. Growing too close to the house, makes it easier for them to get on the ruff. Going to damage the eaves-troughing. Again, haven’t been able to do it with my bum shoulder.” His elbow circles, testing the limits of the range of motion. “One of the reasons I have to sell. Just can’t keep up with the maintenance.”
They tramp up the wooden stairs, the old man leading them up to the second floor. He holds the worn banister and uses it to pull himself up with every step. The paint is peeling and yellow-stained along the stairs. Mckenzie’s nose wrinkles, and her stomach heaves. Tries to force down a gag. She can smell the vague scent of mildew, and something sweeter underneath like rot. “Does it leak along here when there’s rain?”
“Used-to.” The old man pauses for breath, one foot on the next step, gnarled left hand still gripping the railing with surprising strength. “Some of the soffit had fallen down, but that’s fixed. Hasn’t been a problem since. Shouldn’t give you a problem now. Never got around to painting. Structure is sound is the main thing.”
“Good bones,” Russel chimes in. Flashes McKenzie a disarming smile. White teeth.
“The light here is burnt-out.” Eamonn explains on the darkened landing where another set of stairs leads to the bedrooms at a ninety-degree angle. “Grand-niece took my ladder. Says I’ll just get myself killed if she lets me keep it. Nothing electrical, I just can’t reach the socket. Know my way around They reach the top and Eamonn flicks a switch and the hall fills with yellow light, two bare bulbs with no shelters dangle from above. High ceilings. A large window at the far end lets in an orange glow from the dwindling light. Fire.
The old, blue-painted floorboards creak as they enter the hall, chipped and grooved, the grooves are packed flat, filled with a lifetime of dust, a tread worn down the center from the passing of feet. A sander and stain, or maybe just clear sealant would allow the raw grain of the wood to shine. Russel mentally adds it to the itemized list of tasks on their new to-do list. The doors creak as Eamonn pushes each one open in turn, showing them the three small bedrooms, bathroom, and master with a small ensuite. They’d had a tour already of course, but the old man wants to give them one last run-down of their new home. Pointing out little quirks and things they might like to know.
“The lock on this bedroom doesn’t work. Or rather it works, I just don’t know what I did with the key, so don’t lock it for now otherwise you’ll be stuck out until it turns up. The access to the attic is here.” Eamonn opens a hall closet and points to a square hatch in the ceiling. “Nothing up there except rafters and insulation. But you’ll want to poke around in there to check on the roof, maybe set some traps.”
Mckenzie has parked herself by the west-facing window overlooking the fields. The last rays of the sun bathing everything in golden hues and casting an orange glow on her face. Beautiful, Russel thinks. Pregnancy really does make a woman glow. He joins her at the window to look at their new property. A tumble-down old barn. Overgrown fields, gone almost to wild. Stands of sumac and hawthorn cropping up here and there amongst the tall grasses. Pioneer species taking root.
“Used to be a real working farm. Cash crops. Good soil— barring that south-west corner you mind—‘n could be again.” The old man beams at them, right happy some young family has decided to pick up his legacy where he’d left off. “My own kids ‘not interested in farming you understand, all moved to the city. But you can still earn a living!”
The stooped old man turns. “Now. let me show you the harrows and plows—your gunna need them to whip those fields into shape—comes with the farm, as you know. All fully operational as of last year; finally forced to retire. Tractor might just need a tune-up. Added that in to sweeten the deal, attract the right buyer. Couldn’t stand to see the land sold off to some greedy developer.”
***
Later that night, Russel flicks off the light and hunkers down next to his fiancée, a single mattress on the bare paint-chipped floorboards, a single lamp with an exposed bulb on the floor next to the bed. Those are the only two pieces of furniture in the room.
They’d decided to stay the night, their first night in their new home, rather than drive back into the city to their comfortably furnished apartment. Comfort be damned. Neither one of them were divas. Slept on friends’ couches and floors in college. They chose the master with the tiny ensuite of course, nestled in one corner of the house, one window facing south and the other west, overlooking their new property. They wouldn’t have to worry about being blinded by the first rays of morning light—even with no window treatments.
Russel’s green eyes meet Mckenzie’s blue. They smile.
“Do you think we made the right decision?”
“What’d you mean? This place is awesome.” Russel turns on his side, facing Mckenzie, lamplight casting a small circle around them. “Don’t you think?”
“Well, the price was right.” Mckenzie pushes herself upright a bit further with her elbows, leaning against the melamine-coloured wall like a headboard. Rests interlaced fingers on her belly. “But I mean, it’s so far—”
“Only two hours! And we can finally get a dog.”
“Will people even visit us out here?”
“There’s people out here too!”
“True. Our nearest neighbour is what… two kliks away?”
“500 meters—if that.”
“And I know you studied agriculture in college but…”
“But what?”
Clunk, thump. Clunk.
They both look at the ceiling.
“Racoons?” Mckenzie squints.
“Don’t worry hon’, we’ll see about finding where they’re getting in and patching the roof. Cut down those pines too.”
“I was more worried about water damage from the leaks—it can be dangerous to breathe in mould.”
“The old man has been living here for years, and he seems fine… but if it makes you feel any better, we can replace some of the drywall before we paint.”
Mckenzie winces, her features twisting.
“Kicking again?”
Mckenzie takes his hand and rests it on her abdomen, so he can feel the tiny movements inside her body. “Feisty little rabbits.”
Russel switches off the bulb, and they lie in the dark spooning, listening to the sounds of the unfamiliar house settling around them, boards creaking, vents groaning as the furnace kicks on and off, the west wind blowing through the eaves: a consistent, though dampened rattling sound. Probably some of the soffit coming loose again. He’ll have to see about getting up there with a ladder. Another item on the to-do list.
***
The wind is howling. The branches of the pines are slashing at the house, scraping against the windows and eaves like claws. The break of thunder hits with a percussion that rattles the panes of glass in their frames and rattles the bones of the house, the whole house seems to shudder. Lightning flashes in a non-stop flicker of electricity. The farmhouse is a rock at the shores edge, and the storm is a great lake, wave after wave crashes against the red brick. Rain pelts un-mercilessly. Inundating. The rain pelts the windows, the rain pelts the eves, and the rain and pelts the shingles of the roof in a non-stop beat, then the rain turns to hail, and the drumbeat gets louder, more raucous and pitched, I can hear the clicking of individual pellets against the glass of the windows, hitting so hard I worry the glass might break.
Where is Russel? For some reason he isn’t home. I’m left alone in the old farmhouse, during this hurricane of a storm. The rain lashes. I hunker down like a dog in one of the spare rooms. I came in to look out the big picture window overlooking the fields. Accidentally allowed the door to close behind me, and now when I try the handle, the brass knob won’t turn. I’m trapped. Great. Should’ve had that lock replaced right away. We never did come across that lost key yet either… I try not to let my racing heart get the best of me. Calm my breathing. Steady. Steady. This is no reason to panic. The storm can’t hurt me. The power is out, and only lightning illuminates the bare walls. Bare—like before we had just moved in. Odd. The house shouldn’t feel so barren. This room is to be the nursery. Painted blue and yellow. Not yellowed.
Where is Russel? I put my hand on my belly, holding the children safe inside me. Safe inside the walls of my body. I look out the window, and that’s when I see it. The shape of the twister—a funnel cloud, getting closer and closer. Heading straight for the house. Our barren house. Swaying beeline across our fields. Tearing up our precious harvest.
I look down at my hand, now flat against my flat stomach. Tears well from the corner of my eyes, I rock and let out a low moan from my throat. My babies, where are my babies? I don’t understand, but somehow the children have been taken from me and I am filled with a pain that rises from deep inside me, and I know it will consume my entirety, my whole being, my whole world will be swallowed up as the scream rises, rises, rises and threatens to finally break from the husk of my body.
***
Mckenzie looks out the south-west window. She can hear the muffled sound of the plow rumbling. In the morning light, Russel sits atop the tractor like he’s driven the thing a million times, curving out into the fields, puffs of smoke churning out of the exhaust pipe valves. Mckenzie frowns. The turning blades of the harrows churn up earth, grubs, plants, rocks, and small trees and shrubs that had taken root in the preceding year. The twisting blades remind her of something she can’t quite place, something troubling as she watches the soil fall from the shrapnel, native grasses and pioneer species shredded by the spiraling blades. Distant whirr of the motor humming. Russel has already got to work. Mckenzie shakes her head and dismisses the unsettling feeling. Whatever it is, she can’t place it. She turns from the window, letting her worries dissipate. New house jitters. There are tasks to accomplish; no use dwelling on vague anxieties.
***
Russel rides the tractor, one of the disc harrows meant to break up the soil further after the initial plow. Dragonflies swish back and forth, their tiny iridescent wings a blur as they trace patterns in his wake, snapping up all the prey churned up by his passing. An easy meal. Tall sticks painted fluorescent orange mark the edges of the field. He turns the steering wheel following the arc of the markers, cutting off the south-west corner. He struggles to remember what the old man had mumbled about leaving the land fallow? Something about unsuitable Ph or acidity? He shrugs and follows the markers.
On the second pass, he wonders at the economy of leaving arable land untilled. The fields in the south-west corner look no different from the rest of the lands. Slightly overgrown, dotted with grasses and small shrubs. What a waste of money. Two kids to feed. They can use the cash. The proceeds from whatever they grew and sold off. Mortgage to pay. Groceries. Insurance. Gas. Utility bills. Phone bills. Clothes. Necessities and household expenses. They had savings, for now. But it all piled up, weighing on him. No regular paycheck here. Just loans and debt and responsibility. Again Russel tries to remember Eamonn—the old man’s muttered goodbyes.
Don’t till the south-west corner of the field. Green overalls, black rubber boots. Something about archeological significance? He couldn’t afford to waste the potential income were he able to coax some life from the plot. Their family depended on it. They needed every cent. On impulse, Russel wrenches the wheel to the left, veering off course, and into uncharted territory, squaring off the marked-out curve of fluorescent orange markers. He couldn’t afford to leave the field fallow. Family to feed. Bills to pay. The dragonflies zip and zag, weaving back and forth in a frenzy as the break of new ground churns up more gnats and flies to devour. We all gotta eat. Russel thinks. Happy that the darned little beasts are at least getting their fill. The Seagulls and crows too, love the recently tilled fields, adding their droppings to fertilize the soil, pecking at the churned-up worms and bugs. Add in a fresh rain, and it would be feast day. Scavengers gotta eat too. Everything in nature has its place. Us too, I suppose, Russel thinks. Us too. In the grand scheme of things. No different than the birds and bugs, trying to eke some sort of living from the land. A good life. That’s all they were after really.
The going is a bit rough, as it’d probably been some time since this quadrant had been tilled—if ever? He bopped and bumped, being jostled this way and that over the rougher terrain, tearing up the small scrub-brush and bushes with the wheeling blades. As Russel reaches the edge of his property, he turns, squaring off the rounded edge of the former border, and plows his way back to the main body of the field. He looks back to see the dragonflies feasting, and the glint of a white stalk swaddled between two mounds—a branch stripped of bark that had somehow survived the first pass. It looks like a skeletal arm, its fleshless hand pointing towards the farmhouse like the prow of a pirate ship. He shakes his head, too much TV. He turns back to his task, and continues on his way. The light is already leaking from the sky. Not enough hours in the day. Have to make the most of it before he retires for the day. He presses the pedal full throttle, puts on some speed, revving the engine, and ramping up the speed of the blades. Making bank baby. Cash crops equals cash in the bank. He can’t wait for all their efforts to pay off. And for the time to come when they can withdraw all that effort they put in now. It would soon pay off. Time plus sunlight plus hope and some elbow grease. Cha-ching baby. Russel cranks up the music on his headphones Run to the Hills. Run for your lives… Sings along with the classic rock tune. Through dust clouds and barren wastes. High-octane ballad. Yeah baby. Yee-haw. Now you’re talking. Maybe this farmer thing would turn out alright.
“What you got there boy, hunh?” What the— “Put that down boy. Put that down!” Tail wagging, saliva slobbering, their new big St. Bernard drops the forearm—comprised of ulna and radius— with a clunk onto the wood of their front porch and pants happily.
Russel recalls the white stalk of a branch that had somehow survived the first pass. Chrissakes! Guess he hadn’t been imagining things! There lies the skeletal arm, finger clutched in on itself
leaving the index finger extended, as if pointing in supination. Not his imagination. Fuck.
* * * * * *
“Should we report it?” Russel’s eyes rove aimlessly. A june bug smashes its body against the bedside lamp’s bulb, the bulb buzzes.
“To who?” Mckenzie folds her arms across her midriff. “We would be out all the revenue from that quadrant.” Russel looks up and exhales heavily. “The soil there is fertile. No one cares
about a bunch of prehistoric old bones, that stuff is ancient history.” “But what if it has archeological significance? What if it’s important?”
“To who? No one lives here except settlers now. The
Indigenous Peoples here were all wiped out and displaced way back
during the Beaver Wars. Nothing to do with us; all internal infighting
between tribes. War for territory sparked by the fur trade.” “But maybe we could contact someone from the heritage department, or local government? Just in case?”
“No point. This is our land now.”
“But it could be an old graveyard.”
“The whole world is a graveyard. Do you know every sip of water you take has been inside another human body? From centuries, decades, or a thousand years ago. That’s the hydrocarbon cycle, the water cycle. It all circles, and eventually it all comes back. There’s nothing new in this world.”
“I guess you’re right.” McKenzie frowns, lips pursed in acquiescence.
***
Seasons change, the light bleeds from the sky earlier and earlier each day, the leaves on the trees shrivel and lose their colour, the fields fading from vibrant greens to yellow and rust.
The little family throw a feast to celebrate their first successful harvest. The sweet corn from their own fields. Also, beans and squash. Jam made from the currants behind the house. Pumpkin Pie. Zucchini-bread. Herbs from their little garden. As many of the ingredients they could source from their own farm and fields. as possible, and what they couldn’t source from their own lands, sourced from the surrounding areas, as much possible. Turkey farmer from a few miles down the road. Eggs and Beets from a local grower. Twenty-mile diet. Low carbon imprint. Mostly organic, or small industry rather than large scale mega farming operations. Higher yield nutritional value.
The family sits. The twins in highchairs and bibs. Steam rises from the heaping plates of boiled cobs. The centerpiece of their feast, the crown jewel of their fields, the primary product of their harvest. The scent of the rising steam, grassy and succulent. They salivate in hunger. They eat. Their teeth dig into the plump yellow kernels. Incisors scrape cobs. Kernels stick between molars. The pale flesh bursts with sweet, cloying flavour. Peaches and cream. Mottled shades of white, amber, and pale rose. Buttery and soft. Honeyed. Dusted with salt. They slurp and gulp with groans of satisfaction and pleasure. The fine strands of corn-silk are like tassels, like spun gold, like angels’ hair, it sticks wetly to their glossy cheeks, almost the same shade as the flaxen hair that grows on the shaggy heads of their twins. One boy, and one girl. Still too little for corn-on-the-cob, they eat creamed-corned from descending airplanes, gilt spoons. “Num-num-num. Here comes another airplane!” Vvvhhrrroooom into their waiting, open mouths, one by one.
Vvvhhrrroooom!
Vvvhhrrroooom!
The juices run down their chins. Messy. Delicious. Too delicious to bother with the lone kernels that stick here-and-there to the bone white husks. They toss them aside. And reach for another ear. And another. Simply delicious.
“The Harvest,” by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler and originally published by Kegedonce Press which describes itself as “crafting beautiful books that involve Indigenous Peoples at all levels of production. Based at Neyaashiinigmiing, on the traditional territory of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation.”