She looked at the two-row picker again. The rig could not harvest four hundred eighty acres before the storm. Anyone who pretended otherwise did not understand corn, horsepower, or time. Depending on moisture, crop condition, equipment reliability, and hauling capacity, a machine like that might manage only a small fraction of the acreage in a day. And if the picker failed, she could lose valuable hours trying to repair a curiosity that had been standing in a barn for years. But the old machine could prove the crop was not entirely beyond her reach. It could get the first bushels moving while she organized help.
"I have to make some calls," she said.
Garnet stepped aside. "Are you going to hire a custom crew?"
"If I can find one. Every farmer in the county is racing the weather."
"There's a service technician in Waterloo who knows those old pickers."
"Who?"
He gave her a name and number. Hollis wrote it in Roland's binder, surprised by the small mercy of an honest answer. Then she asked Garnet to drive out of the barn lane so she could move equipment. He took three steps toward his truck, stopped, and turned back. "I really didn't want to hurt your farm."
She looked at him. "Wanting and doing aren't the same thing."
After he left, she called the retired mechanic whose number appeared on Roland's checklist. He answered on the fourth ring, sounding irritated to be interrupted during supper preparation. When Hollis explained which tractor and picker were involved, his voice changed. "Roland's old four-forty-four-zero?" he asked. "That was a fine engine."
"Can you come?"
"What's happened?"
She described the combine hold in four sentences. The mechanic listened without interruption. Then he said, "I'll bring a battery and the tools I think we'll need. Don't try to start it until we check the fluids and fuel system. Older machines don't forgive being awakened rough."
She called the banker next. The loan officer, a careful woman who had worked with Roland for years, answered from her car. Hollis explained that the combine was disabled by the dealer over a disputed service charge. There was a long silence. "That is not an ordinary equipment failure," the banker said. "Send me everything. Especially the hold notice. We need to examine the financing documents and the service terms."
"Can the bank force them to unlock it?"