Nobody laughed at first.
They were too exhausted.
For thirty-six hours, four professional recovery crews had attempted to rescue a massive green combine harvester from a flooded Iowa cornfield. The machine weighed approximately 91,000 pounds with its remaining grain and equipment, and it had settled so deeply into the black earth that its front wheels were almost swallowed.
Two enormous yellow cranes stood near the field entrance, their booms stretching into the gray afternoon sky. Another crane occupied a reinforced position farther back, while the fourth waited beyond a temporary construction roadway.
Steel chains lay across the mud like enormous snakes.
Thick recovery mats had disappeared beneath layers of clay.
The combine's enormous harvesting header was tilted forward, its lower edge buried in the saturated soil, and every attempt to move the machine had ended with the recovery engineers ordering the lifting operations stopped.
The ground was too unstable.
The machinery too heavy.
And the risk of pulling the combine sideways or damaging its frame was becoming unacceptable.
The crane foreman wiped his muddy gloves against his orange reflective vest.
He was fifty-five, broad-shouldered, with a weathered face, gray stubble, and the irritated expression of a man whose experience had finally encountered something it couldn't easily overcome.
He stared at the sunken machine.
Then shook his head.
"That's it. We're done."
The woman who owned the farm stood beside him.
She was thirty-eight, with tired brown eyes and auburn hair pulled beneath a faded baseball cap. Her work jacket was soaked around the cuffs, and mud covered her boots almost to her knees.
She hadn't slept properly in two nights.
"Please," she said. "There has to be another way."
The foreman looked at her with genuine frustration.
"Ma'am, I've had four crews look at this field. We can't safely lift that thing until the ground can support the equipment."
She looked toward the combine.
"It's our whole harvest."
"I understand."
"No, you don't."
Her voice broke.
The foreman's expression softened.
But he didn't change his answer.
"The ground has it locked. We need it to dry, or we need a completely different recovery plan."
The mother looked toward the corn standing beyond the flooded area.
Nearly nine hundred acres remained unharvested.
The grain buyer's delivery deadline was approaching.
The bank had already called twice.
And the green combine buried in the mud represented more money than her family had earned in several years.