Damon Knight - Orbit 18

“Who runs the Pulls?” she asked, in English, of the first man who reached her.

He didn’t know what to do. Women never talk like that.

“Winston Mack Truck,” said Freddy at my side, pointing.

“What do you mean?” asked one of the young men. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m going to enter the Pull,” she said.

Tribal language mumbles went around the circle. Very negative ones.

“Don’t give me any of that shit,” she said. “How many of you know of Alan Backhoe Shovel?”

He was another legend over in Ouachita River country.

“Well,” she said, and held up a serial number plate from a backhoe tractor scoop, “I beat him last week.”

“Hua, hua, hua!” the chanting started.

“What is your name, woman?” asked one of Mack Truck’s men.

“Mary Margaret Road-Grader,” she said, and glared back at him.

“Freddy,” I said, “put the money on her.”

So we had a council. You gotta have a council for everything, especially when honor and dignity and other manly virtues are involved.

Winston Mack Truck was pretty old, but he was still spry and had some muscles left on him. His head was a puckered lump because he had once crashed in a burner while raiding over on the Brazos. He only had one ear, and it wasn’t much of one.

But he did have respect, and he did have power, and he had more sons than anyone in the Nations, ten or eleven of them. They were all there in council, with all the heads of other families.

Winston Mack Truck smoked awhile, then called us to session.

Mary Margaret Road-Grader wasn’t allowed inside the lodge. It seemed sort of stupid to me. If they wouldn’t let her in here, they sure weren’t going to let her enter the Pull. But I kept my tongue. You can never tell.

I was right. Old man Mack Truck can see clear through to tomorrow.

“Brothers,” he said. “We have a problem here.”

“Hua, hua, hua.”

“We have been asked to let a woman enter the Pulls.” Silence.

“I do not know if it’s a good thing,” he continued. “But our brothers to the east have seen fit to let her do so. This woman claims to have defeated Alan Backhoe Shovel in fair contest. She enters this as proof.”

He placed the serial plate in the center of the lodge.

“I will listen now,” he said, and sat back, folding his arms.

They went around the circle, some speaking, some not.

It was Simon Red Bulldozer himself who changed the tone of the council. “I have never seen a woman in a Pull,” he said. “Or in any contest other than those for women.”

He paused. “But I have never wrestled against Alan Backhoe Shovel, either. I know of no one who has bested him. Now this woman claims to have done so. It would be interesting to see if she were a good Puller.”

“You want a woman in the contest?” asked Elmo, out of turn.

Richard Ford Pinto, the next speaker, stared at Elmo until he realized his mistake. But Ford Pinto saved face for him by asking the same question of Simon.

“I would like to see if she is a good Puller,” said Simon, adamantly. He would commit himself no further.

Then it was Elmo’s turn. “My brothers!” he began, so I figured he would be at it for a long time. “We seem to spend all our time in council, rather than having fun like we should. It is not good, it makes my heart bitter.

“The idea that a woman can get a hearing at council revolts me. Were this a young man not yet proven, or an Elder who had been given his Service feather, I would not object. But, brothers, this is a woman!” His voice came falsetto now, and he began to chant:

“I have seen the dawn of bad days, brothers.

“But never worse than this.

“A woman enters our camp, brothers!

“A woman! A woman!”

He sat down and said no more in the conference.

It was my turn.

“Hear me, Pullers and Stealers!” I said. “You know me. I am a man of my word and a man of my deeds. But the time has come for deeds alone. Words must be put away. We must decide whether a woman can be as good as a man. We cannot be afraid of a woman! Or can some of us be?”

They all howled and grumbled just like I wanted them to. You can’t suggest men in council are afraid of anything.

Of course, we voted to let her in the contest, like I knew we would.

Changes in history come easy, you know?

They pulled the small tractors first, the Ford 250s and the Honda Fieldmasters and such. I wasn’t much interested in watching young boys fly through the air and hurt themselves. So me and Freddy wandered over where the big tractor men were warming up. The Karankawas were selling fuel from the old Houston refineries hand over hose. A couple of the Pullers had refused, like Elmo at first, to do anything with a woman in the contest.

But even Elmo was there watching when Mary Margaret Road-Grader unveiled her machine. There were lots of oohs and ahhs when she started pulling the tarp off that monster.

Nobody had seen one in years, except maybe as piles of rust on the roadside. It was long and low, and looked much like a yellow elephant’s head with wheels stuck on the end of the trunk. The cab was high and shiny glass. Even the doors still worked. The blade was new and bright; it looked as if it had never been used.

The letters on the side were sharp and black, unfaded. Even the paint job was new. That made me suspicious about the Alan Backhoe Shovel contest. I took a gander at the towball while she was atop the cab loosening the straps. It was worn. Either she had been lucky in the contest, or she’d had sense enough to put on a worn towball.

Everybody watched her unfold the tarp (one of those heavy smelly kind that can fall on you and kill you) but she had no helpers. So I climbed up to give her a hand.

One of the women called out something and some others took it up. Most of the men just shook their heads.

There was a lot of screaming and hoorawing from the little Pulls, so I had to touch her on the shoulder to let her know I was up there. She turned fast and her hand went for her gun before she saw it was me.

And I saw in her eyes not killer hate, but something else: I saw she was scared and afraid she’d have to kill someone.

“Let me help you with this,” I said, pointing to the tarp.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t object, either.

“For a good judge,” called out fat Elmo, “you have poor taste in women.”

There was nothing I could do but keep busy while they laughed.

They still talk about that first afternoon, the one that was the beginning of the end.

First, Elmo John Deere hitched onto an IH 1200 and drug it over the line in about three seconds. No contest, and no one was surprised. Then Simon Red Bulldozer cranked up; his starter engine sounded like a beehive in a rainstorm. He hooked the chain on his towbar and revved up. The guy he was pulling against was a Paluxy River man named Theodore Bush Hog. He didn’t hook up right. The chain came off as soon as Simon let go his clutches. So Bush Hog was disqualified. That was bad, too; there were some dark-horse bets on him.

Then it was the turn of Mary Margaret Road-Grader and Elmo John Deere. Elmo had said at first he wasn’t going to enter against her. Then they told him how much money was bet on him, and he couldn’t afford to pass it up. Though the excuse he used was that somebody had to show this woman her place, and it might as well be him, first thing off.

You had to be there to see it. Mary Margaret whipped that road-grader around like it was a Toyota, and backed it onto the field. She climbed down with the motor running and hooked up. She was wearing tight blue coveralls and her hair was blowing in the river breeze. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I didn’t want her to get her heart broken. But there was nothing I could do. It was all on her, now.