The Check I Wrote at the Feed Store

March

By the first of March, Ward had more work than days. He rode my fence Monday and Tuesday, checked Tobe’s windmills Wednesday and Saturday, helped work cattle for whoever needed him on Thursday and Friday.

He went to the drugstore and paid for his knee pills with a twenty and got change. Jolene saw him do it. She came home and told me about it like it was the best news she had heard all year, and maybe it was.

He bought a better saddle off a man in Mobeetie, an old one with a deep seat that was easier on his knee. He fixed the cracked tailgate on his Ford. He bought feed for the old sorrel mare and stopped worrying about the price of it.

And he got quieter in a different way. Not the quiet of a man holding something in. The quiet of a man doing work he is good at.

One afternoon in early March, I rode out with him to look at the north fence. It was a clear day, the wind down for once, the sun warm on our backs. The wheat on the neighbor’s place was greening up.

We rode along without talking for a mile or so. Then Ward said, “I still have it, you know.”

“Have what?”

“The check.” He patted his jacket where his wallet was. “I cashed it. But I asked the girl at the bank for a copy of it. It’s in my wallet.”

“Why would you do that?”

He looked out across the grass a long time.

“Because the day I got home from the hospital in Germany,” he said, “I thought I’d never be worth anything to anybody again. And the day you wrote that, I found out I was wrong. I want to remember it.”

I did not say anything. I could not. We rode on down the fence, and Sergeant walked steady and easy under him, and after a while Ward started whistling an old hymn his mother used to sing, the one about the sweet hour of prayer.