“Then what are you planning to do with it?”
The old man remained quiet.
Grant pointed toward the rusted engine.
“It's been dead for sixty years! The crankshaft's seized, half the fittings are missing, and you'll spend a thousand dollars just finding out how badly it's broken!”
Sam glanced at the machine.
“I don't need it to run.”
That answer made the men laugh even harder.
One of them, a heavyset farmer named Earl Benton, slapped his knee.
“Then why buy a tractor, Sam? Planning to grow rust?”
Another man, Morris Pike, shook his head.
“His farm's about to get taken by the bank. Maybe he figures that old thing can pull him out of debt.”
Grant gave an exaggerated gasp.
“Now there's a business plan!”
The men roared.
Sam looked down.
For a moment, his expression tightened.
The remark about the bank was true.
He owed twenty-eight thousand four hundred dollars, and the lender had given him thirteen days to produce an acceptable repayment arrangement before the account entered the next stage of collection.
His old farm had already lost most of its equipment.
His wife was dead.
His only son had been killed years earlier.
And the daughter who still lived nearby had been begging him to stop exhausting himself trying to preserve land that barely produced enough to cover its expenses.
But Sam hadn't come to the auction to impress anyone.
He'd come because, three nights earlier, he'd found a letter written by his father in 1957.
The letter contained only one paragraph about the old tractor.
If the Vale family ever tries to scrap the 1924 machine, buy it before the iron is cut apart. Whatever they offer you to look away, remember that the truth is inside the engine. Your grandfather made me promise it would never be destroyed.
Sam had read those words until his hands began shaking.
Then he'd driven forty miles to the auction with one dollar in his pocket.
Now Grant was laughing at him.
The auctioneer raised his gavel.
“One dollar! Going once!”
Sam didn't move.
“Going twice!”
One of the farmers shouted, “Make sure you throw in a shovel so he can bury it!”
Laughter.
Then Grant slammed the gavel.
“SOLD! To the poorest farmer in Ashford County!”
He pointed toward Sam.
“Congratulations, old man! You've just purchased the most expensive piece of scrap metal you'll ever own!”
Sam slowly stepped forward and handed over his dollar.