“You’re positioning yourself to own my land.”
“If you pay, none of those provisions matter.”
“If I could guarantee payment, I wouldn’t need your loan.”
Dwight sighed patiently.
“Clara, your husband understood risk.”
The mention of Luke made her expression change.
Dwight saw.
He continued anyway.
“Luke would look at those goats and make the practical decision.”
“Don’t tell me what my husband would do.”
“I knew him.”
“You sold him fence posts twice.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“No.”
Dwight pointed toward the watermelons.
“This is not a plan.”
Clara folded the contract.
“My mother taught me something.”
“What?”
She handed the folder back.
“Never borrow against animals that still have a chance.”
Dwight smiled tightly.
“And spoiled fruit is your answer?”
“No.”
Clara looked directly into his eyes.
“Debt doesn’t rot where you can see it.”
Roy coughed.
The truck driver stared at the ground.
Dwight’s smile disappeared.
For perhaps two seconds, Clara saw something beneath his polished calm.
Anger.
Then it vanished.
“Offer stands until Friday.”
“It can expire today.”
“You’ll call.”
“No.”
“You will.”
He returned to his truck.
Before getting inside, he looked across the north pasture.
Not at the goats.
Not at the melon truck.
At the empty ground beyond the barn.
Clara noticed.
She did not understand why.
Not yet.
Dwight drove away.
Roy remained beside the fence.
“That was probably your last cheap hay offer.”
Clara stared at him.
“Twelve percent secured by the ranch is cheap?”
“This year?”
“Yes.”
“Roy.”
He lifted both hands.
“Your funeral.”
Clara turned away.
Then he said something quieter.
“Nell signed one.”
Clara stopped.
“What?”
Roy looked toward Dwight’s disappearing truck.
“Nell Foster.”
“When?”
“June.”
Clara knew Nell.
Everyone did.
Fifty-four-year-old widow.
Cattle ranch ten miles west.
Her husband died four years earlier.
“What happened?”
Roy kicked dust.
“Don’t know all of it.”
“She sold most of her cows.”
“I know.”
“Kesler owns part of the north forty now.”
Clara slowly turned.
“You said she signed a feed contract.”
Roy nodded.
“Same kind?”
“I assume.”
Clara looked toward the road.
The black pickup was already gone.
That evening she sorted melons until sunset.
Of the first hundred and eighty, twenty-three went directly to compost because they smelled wrong or showed mold.
The rest she cut, rationed, and stored under shade.
The goats approached cautiously.
Then eagerly.
Clara placed hay beside the watermelon.
Not much.
Enough roughage.