The Note the Bank Called After the Drought

What she would say

She did not make a speech. I want to be fair to her about that.

She asked each of us for one sentence, in order, around the room. She wrote on a legal pad and did not look up.

Barbara Zeller said, “Brent Mabry recommended Doug Marsh to my neighbors like he was recommending a plumber.”

Jim Schaefer said, “Marsh stood on my porch on October fourteenth and talked about the Becker bottom like he’d already bought it.”

Gina Hendricks said, “I signed the paper in March because they told me it was the only way to keep my house.”

Cal Dunlap said it in four words. “I sold a hundred twenty.”

When it came to Shane, he stood by the door with his cap in both hands.

“I’m Shane Becker,” he said. “My dad and I have farmed that bottom since I was born. My daughter’s eight. I’d like her to grow up on it.”

That was all. He sat.

Susan Pratt set down her pen.

“Mr. Becker,” she said to me, “is Brent Mabry at the Harlan Bend branch this morning?”

“I expect so.”

“Then I’m going to ask him to come see me.” She stood. “I’ll need the rest of the day. Mr. Tillman, would you be willing to leave that book with me until tomorrow? I’ll give you a receipt. I’ll drive it back myself.”

“Young lady,” said Arlen, “I’d be glad.”

The rest of that day

I will not pretend I know everything that happened in that building after we left it, and we did not leave it right away.

We stayed for the sandwiches, Beulah’s ham in wax paper, passed down the line while the rest of the bank worked around us. At noon a black sedan pulled up outside and Mabry came in through the front door with his vest on. He saw eleven farmers eating lunch in his boss’s lobby and stopped as if he had hit glass.

He looked at me. I did not look away and I did not smile. He did not say a word. Susan Pratt’s assistant came down the stairs and touched his elbow, and he went up with her.

I thought, Don Mercer would have been proud of this room. And I also thought, there is a little boy somewhere in that man, standing in a yard in Iowa in 1986.

Both things were true. Both are true now.

Susan Pratt came out a little after one.

“Mr. Becker,” she said, “I am not going to tell you today that this is settled. I would be lying, and you would know it.”

I waited.

“Here is what I can do. The thirty-day notice on Shane’s note is stayed, in writing, by four o’clock this afternoon. Nobody will call that note while we review it. Mr. Mabry will have no part in your file or in any file I am about to pull.” She paused. “I am also going to read Mr. Kessler’s consent request myself, since it appears nobody did.”

“And the Hendricks and Dunlap families?”

“I don’t know yet.” She did not pretend. “Mr. Marsh has had coffee in this building. That is not a crime. It is a reason I should have returned your call, and I did not. I am going to find out what we did, and I give you my word on that. I’ll give it to every one of you.”

She looked across the room.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

It was not a large thing to say. It was the right size.