Wednesday Evening
Spencer came to our house on Wednesday before supper. The sun was still up over the hills. He did not come to the door.
He came to the end of our row where the bin trailer sat, and he stood there until Abe walked out.
I watched from the porch. Spencer talked for a long time, and his hands moved. Abe stood with his arms crossed and listened. Then Abe talked, not long.
Abe told me later what he said. Spencer asked him to bring the crew back for the Fuji, and to get them back before the freeze.
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He said he would pay $40 a bin. He said he would pay double.
“I told him the men don’t belong to me,” Abe said. “And I told him nobody on that crew will pick another apple for him until he pays them what he kept. In cash. To their faces. At that trailer.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said the bank’s got him by the throat,” Abe said. “I said I believe him. I said those men’s banks are a coffee can and a pharmacy counter, and he had them by the throat first.”
The Next Friday
The next Friday at four o’clock, a week to the hour after the short checks, Spencer Wenzel came walking down our row to the bin trailer with a bank envelope in his coat.
The men were there. Abe had asked them. They came over from Ione’s after their own payday and stood around the trailer in their picking clothes, and nobody said a word.
Spencer had the green book’s numbers. Abe had given him a copy on notebook paper.
He went down the list man by man, counting cash into each hand. Lester first. Then the young one with the baby. Then all the rest.
It came to $8,400. Spencer counted every bill himself. I will give him that.
When he got to Lester, he stopped and looked at him, and said, “I’m sorry, Lester. That was wrong.”
Lester nodded. “It was,” he said. “Thank you for saying so.” That was all he said, and it was enough.
Then something happened that I did not expect. When Spencer was done and turned to go, the men did not leave.
They all walked over to the porch, where I was standing, one at a time.