“Picture?”
Dale stared.
Hannah laughed.
“Recovery fee is six hundred.”
“Six hundred?”
“Emergency mobilization.”
“You were eighteen minutes away.”
“Convenience premium.”
Dale glared.
Then wrote the check.
On the memo line he wrote:
EXTORTION.
Hannah deposited it.
The photograph never went online.
Mark printed it and hung it inside Hannah’s shop.
Dale discovered it six months later.
Threatened to steal it.
Never did.
The second year changed the scale of Hannah’s work.
A county conservation group contacted her.
They managed several small forest parcels where invasive buckthorn and damaged ash needed removal.
Large mechanized logging was not suitable.
Hand crews were expensive.
Hannah’s cable skidder could remain on designated trails while winching material from sensitive areas.
The contract was not huge.
$28,000 across several sites.
But it lasted through slow periods.
More importantly, it introduced Hannah to consulting foresters.
Foresters did not care that the skidder was old.
They cared whether she followed prescriptions.
Residual stand damage.
Trail width.
Wetland setbacks.
Timing.
Hannah became obsessive.
She photographed sites before and after.
Tracked machine routes.
Measured fuel.
Not because contracts required all of it.
Because she needed to know whether her low-overhead argument remained true.
The machine changed too.
New seat.
Improved work lights.
Rebuilt starter.
Hydraulic cylinder reseal.
New brake components.
Radiator cleaned and repaired.
Fresh cab seals.
Hannah spent money where failure cost downtime or safety.
She did not restore paint.
Dale asked:
“When you painting that thing?”
“Never.”
“Looks awful.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“People stop asking if it’s new.”
“Nobody has ever asked.”
Hannah laughed.
By the middle of year two, total money invested in the Deere had reached almost $17,000.
That sounded very different from $1,100.
People liked repeating purchase price.
Hannah repeated total investment instead.
Because pretending cheap equipment remained cheap after maintenance was dishonest.
Still, $17,000 compared favorably with six-figure financed equipment.
Only if it stayed productive.
That was the gamble.
Then the engine failed.
Not completely.
Worse.
It began losing oil pressure at hot idle.
Hannah saw the gauge flicker during a July job.
She stopped immediately.
Mechanical gauge confirmed pressure too low.
She shut down.
Had the machine hauled home.
Dale heard.
Called.
“Scrap yard finally?”
“No.”
“Engine?”
“Probably bearings.”
“How much?”
“Unknown.”
“Now you’ll learn.”
Hannah hung up.
The engine teardown began in her farm shop.
Mark helped.
So did a retired Deere mechanic named Walter Voss.
Walter had worked at a dealership for thirty-nine years and moved slowly enough to make Hannah impatient until she realized his hands noticed things faster than her eyes.
They pulled oil pan.
Checked bearings.
Wear.
Oil pump.
Crank.