The Pumpkin Wagon Wyatt Took Back

Why didn’t I call the sheriff, or somebody’s lawyer? Because an auction like that runs on a handshake. The men who made the rules were sitting in the same building, and a mother who stands and waits has more power than one who storms out.

I did call Aaron, from the pay phone in the lobby, because I do not get a signal in that pole barn. It rang eleven times. He was running a spreader on a county road with the cab windows up.

I left a message. I said, “Jordan bid nine hundred on Wyatt’s wagon and won’t pay. I’m okay. I’m going to wait for Amos.” And then I stood at the counter and waited, with my hands flat on the Formica, while the clock over the pegboard said 1:34, then 1:40, then 1:51.

Amos Gingerich came down the aisle at 1:52, still carrying his microphone on its cord, with another man beside him. The man was Ellsworth Hershberger, the president of the auction association’s board. He is eighty, wears a hearing aid, and has been known to remove a bidder from the benches with nothing more than a look.

Naomi slid the unpaid slip across to them.

Amos read it. Then he read it again.

“Whose boy is that?” he said, and tipped his chin toward the bench by the door.

“Aaron and Bethany Underwood’s,” Naomi said. “Garland’s grandson.”

Something changed in Amos Gingerich’s face. It did not soften, exactly. It settled, the way a barn settles when the wind quits.

“Garland’s,” he said.

“Yes.”

He looked at Ellsworth. Ellsworth looked at him. I have no idea what passed between them. I have been around a lot of old men and I know when there is a whole conversation going on in a look.

“The rule’s older than I am,” Amos said. He was talking to me but looking at the slip. “A sold lot belongs to the bidder, or it goes back on the block.

“If the bidder will not pay, the auction sells it again, and the bidder answers to the board for it. If the second sale comes in lower, he pays the difference. If it comes in higher, the seller keeps it all.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Do you? Because I want you to know I will not run that wagon again unless you’re willing to stand in front of that room with your boy and do it.” He lifted his gray eyebrows at me. “It will be a long walk, Mrs. Underwood. Four hundred people. Half of them heard what Jordan said.”

I thought about that. I will be honest with you. I thought about Wyatt on that bench by the door, sitting up straight and watching the wagons with the seriousness of a boy given an important job. I thought about his hand in mine, going cold.

“Then I’ll walk it,” I said.

Amos nodded once. He took off his straw hat, which I had never seen him do inside the building, and he held it in both hands against his vest.

“Go get your boy,” he said. “I’ll make an announcement. Drive it in yourself, Bethany. Slow.”

I went and got my boy.

“Are we in trouble?” Wyatt asked.

“No. We’re going back in.”

“Is Jordan still going to pay?”

“No,” I said. “Somebody else will bid.”

He thought that over, and I saw his chin come up again, a little less than before and a little crooked, but up.