The Granddaughter Who Fed the Card Club

The girl at the locker plant counter had a pencil behind her ear and a clipboard in both hands, and she was already sorry before she said a word.

“Halvorsen,” she said, running her finger down the page. “Paisley Halvorsen, one doe, youth season. That order went out the door on the second of October.”

Paisley stood next to me in her school jacket with her hands in her pockets. She was thirteen. She had been waiting three weeks to see her own deer wrapped in white paper with her name on it in black marker.

“Went out with who?” I asked. The girl checked again. “Orrin Saathoff signed for it. Forty-eight pounds. Steaks, roasts, and the rest in ground. Paid in cash.”

I thanked her. I did not want her to feel any worse than she already did. We walked back out into the parking lot, where the October sun was bright on the gravel and the wind smelled like somebody combining beans two miles off.

Paisley did not say anything until we were both in the truck with the doors shut.

“Grandpa picked it up,” she said. “That’s fine. He’s probably keeping it in his chest freezer for me.”

“Probably,” I said.

I am a lineman for the rural electric co-op out of Waverly, Iowa. I have spent twenty-one years climbing poles in wind and sleet, and I have learned to tell when a thing is fine and when it only sounds fine. This only sounded fine.

The Freezer

We drove straight out to Orrin’s place. He farms four hundred acres north of town, corn and beans, the same ground his father farmed. My wife grew up in that white house with the green shutters, and Paisley has run around that yard since she could walk.

Orrin was in the machine shed greasing the planter when we pulled in. He wiped his hands on a red rag and came out smiling, because he loves that girl, and I want that said right at the start.

“There’s my deer slayer,” he said.

“Hi, Grandpa,” Paisley said. “The locker said you picked up my meat. Can we take some home? Mom wants to make chili Sunday.”

Orrin’s smile stayed on his face a half second too long. Then he looked at the ground, at the gravel, at his boots.

“Well,” he said. “I took care of that, honey.”

“Took care of it how?” I asked.

“The boys,” he said. “My card club. I split it up among them. They don’t get much venison anymore, most of them can’t hunt now. Lavern’s eighty-six. Royal’s knees are shot. It went to good homes.”

Paisley stood very still. I watched her face do the thing a thirteen-year-old’s face does when she is trying hard not to let it do anything at all.

“All of it?” she asked.

“Every pound,” Orrin said, and I think he meant it to sound generous. “Forty-eight pounds. They were tickled.”

“Did you tell them it was mine?” Orrin opened his mouth and shut it again. He scratched the back of his neck.

“I told them it came off the farm,” he said.