The Day the Peacocks Won the Tractor Hunt

 

Author’s note: I write about work, travel, and the tiny catastrophes that make a life interesting. This one’s not political — it’s proof that sometimes the absurd wins out before the practical ever gets a shot.

I haven’t been deployed since my ride-along in July, which, given my line of work, makes me the most non-traveling virtual catastrophe adjuster in the world. That’s a great thing for the family, not great for the blog — unless you like following one man’s slow descent into stir-crazy. So when a team meeting gave me a story-worthy excuse to write something else, I took it.

When Jamie and I moved to North Carolina we ended up with enough land to indulge my part-time farmer fantasies: horses (check), a parade of rescues courtesy of Jamie (check), and at one point — because of course — over a hundred chickens. Somewhere in that glorious nonsense I decided I needed a tractor. Not a fantasy tractor, a real, honest-to-God, plow-your-field, push-your-brush, get-your-hands-dirty tractor. Back in New York I’d had a Ford 801 that was perfect — front bucket for firewood, simple enough to do a head gasket in a driveway without feeling foolish. And tractors are one of those few things in life where you can legitimately say, “I’ll go buy a sixty-year-old machine” and no one blinks.

I’m cheap, yes, but also practical: most of these old tractors were made to be rebuilt by someone who was twelve and unafraid of tools. So when Craigslist screamed a “Ford 9N — $1,200” while I was working in Fayetteville, my thumb hit reply before my common sense caught up. The seller said he had seven or eight tractors that needed work. “Stop by and look,” he said. “Take the dirt road on the left, go down into the gully. You’ll see a bowl of junk cars and tractors.” He warned me there were peacocks. I didn’t register that last bit as important.

After work I found the address, found the left turn, and drove as far as my car would take me. At the gate I parked and walked the rest of the way in. The place did look like a bowl — rusted hulks, an old dozer, tractors leaning like tired sentries.

I got right to work: checking out the old machines, trying to size them up. A Ford here, a Farmall there. Which one could be revived? Which one was nothing but a parts donor? I crouched down, peering under the frame of one of them, lost in tractor-world — grease, bolts, possibilities.

That’s when I heard it.

“Help.”

It was a cartoonish, high-pitched little “help,” so out of place I thought maybe I was imagining it. I stood up, scanned the clearing. Nothing. Back to the tractors. Then again, sharper this time: “Help.”

Before I could make sense of it, a heavy flutter filled the air. A full-grown peacock landed with a thud on the hood of the Farmall, tail dragging like royalty. Two more swooped down onto the roof of the old dozer. Then another. And another.

I turned and there were six more peacocks in front of me. To my left, five or six more filled the view. They strutted in circles, feathers flashing, shrieking that eerie “help” call over and over. It stopped being a flock and became a gang.

And then they just kept coming.

It felt like one of those old western movies: the lone rider spots a single Indian up on the ridge, and then suddenly the whole horizon fills with silhouettes, hundreds of them appearing out of nowhere. Only this time, instead of braves on horseback, it was a riot of screeching, technicolor peacocks pacing and posturing all around me.

Like this but rainbow turkeys

The tractors were forgotten. My brain ran bad math: Could I kick a peacock? Do they have spurs? Are they like roosters? Stop it, you’re being ridiculous. Remember your neighbor’s peacocks in New York — they were stupid, harmless. How many can I fight at once, do peacocks' have a weak spot? 

Authors post research note... they do have sharp beaks and spurs and do get territorial and will attack humans.

But these? These were plotting. I was sure of it.

The road behind me was feathered over, so escape that way was a no-go. I spotted an old rusted Dodge Dart without wheels, sprinted to it, climbed in, and slammed the door. The inside was hot and smelled like mouse piss and regret. I cracked the window and, because I am an adult, shouted at them.

“ Go away, peacocks!” I announced like a National Park ranger shooing bears.

They paused, looked at me like I’d said something unusual but not worth correcting, and after a tense five minutes drifted off to peacock business elsewhere — displaying, preening, probably gossiping about the strange hairless ape who had barricaded himself in a wheel-less Dodge.

In those five minutes I drafted the headline for my imaginary obituary: Man Found Dead in Car; Cause Unknown; Situation: Picked to Death by Peacocks. I imagined the small-town paper with my face in grainy black-and-white on page nine and asked myself how a simple tractor-buying expedition had turned into the most surreal micro-trauma of my week.

I didn’t bring home a tractor that day. I left laughing at myself like a maniac all the way home. And the truth is, I don’t even live on that farm anymore, so I don’t need a tractor at all. But still, I catch myself scrolling through Facebook Marketplace, eyeing old Fords and Farmalls like they’re long-lost friends. Why do I do that? I don’t know. Probably for the same reason that wherever I travel, I end up on Zillow, checking out houses I’ll never buy just to see how people live and what it costs to live there. Some habits, I guess, are less about need and more about curiosity.

For now, I’ll stick to Marketplace tractors and Zillow houses. But here’s hoping my next story comes from a deployment — and not another showdown with a gang of feral peacocks