The Wheat Crop Held at the Elevator

“I saw Wayne at church,” Mom said. “How was he?” “Smaller.” She cut another bite. “He asked about you. I said you were fine. I said you were busy.”

“Did he say anything else?” She looked at me for a long time.

She is a woman who raised three boys and buried a husband, and she can tell when you are asking for something other than what you are asking.

“No, Nolan,” she said. “He didn’t.” I nodded. Cade picked up my father’s pocketknife off the counter, where he had set it down that morning to cut a piece of twine.

He ran his thumb over the cracked yellow handle.

“Dad,” he said. “Can I ask you something?” “Sure.” “If he’d just written the check in July. If he’d just said sorry on the field. Would you have kept the grain?”

“No,” I said. “I’d have shaken his hand and been on the road by sundown.” “So he could have stopped it any time.”

“Any time,” I said. “Right up until he walked into that office.” Cade thought about that. Then he pocketed the knife and picked up his fork.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s the part I wanted to know.” Next June we will be back in Lyle.

We have eight farms booked in the county, and Sid has asked us to park the machines in the co-op lot overnight, because he says it is good for business. Mr. Kroeker has put us down for his whole section.

Four farmers who did not know us a year ago have called to say they heard what happened at the scale house, and that they would like to give us a first and a second pass on their ground.

Wayne’s wheat will be ready the same week. I do not know who will cut it.

What I know is this. In the spring, before anybody pulls out of Texas, I will sit down with every one of them, family or not, and I will write the number on a piece of paper.

I will put the date on it. I will ask them to sign.

I will not be insulted when they ask me to sign it too. A written number is the kindest thing you can give a relative.

It means the two of you never have to find out what you would do.

And this winter, the morning before we trailered the machines out for the first of next year’s jobs, I took Cade out to the shop.

The 9650 was parked with its header off, and the cold made our breath white. He stood next to me and looked at the old machine, and I handed him a wrench.

“What do you want me to do?” “Torque the third bearing on the right side,” I said. “Then write down how many foot-pounds you used. Put the date on it.”

“Why the date?” “So that next year, when someone asks you what you did, you can show them.” He took the wrench.

He was a little taller than he had been in July, in the shoulders, in a way I did not think a boy could grow in six months.

He bent over the bearing and tightened it, and I stood back and watched my father’s grandson do a clean, careful job, and write the number in the notebook, and write the date beside it in his own square hand.