He pointed toward his own fields.
“My ground produces.”
“With three irrigation passes and how much nitrogen?”
His jaw tightened.
“Produces.”
“At what margin?”
Silas said nothing.
Everybody in the county knew margins had tightened.
Diesel.
Fertilizer.
Equipment loans.
Water pumping.
Cotton prices shifting.
Crop insurance becoming a psychological necessity rather than backup.
Silas had more land than Clara.
He also had more debt.
People mistook scale for security.
Clara had learned better.
Silas pointed toward the mulch.
“You'll get mice.”
“Probably some.”
“Fire risk.”
“Managing it.”
“Fungus.”
“Hopefully the useful kind.”
“Termites.”
“Not especially worried.”
“Bank.”
Clara looked toward him.
There it was again.
“You really enjoy saying that word.”
“Somebody should.”
“My loan is current.”
“For now.”
Clara’s expression hardened.
“What are you implying?”
Silas stepped closer to the fence.
“I had coffee with Harold Bennett yesterday.”
Harold managed agricultural lending at First Plains Bank.
Clara stared.
“And?”
“Mentioned your experiment.”
“You discussed my farm loan with my banker?”
“I discussed what I can see from my property.”
“Why?”
Silas shrugged.
“Concern.”
“No.”
Clara walked toward the fence.
“You weren't concerned.”
“Then what was I?”
“Threatened.”
Silas laughed.
“By peanut shells?”
“By anything that suggests you may not know everything.”
The smile disappeared.
Clara continued:
“You've farmed longer than I've been alive.”
“People listen when you talk.”
“You like that.”
“Now I’m doing something you already told everybody would fail.”
“And if it doesn't?”
Silas gripped the fence rail.
“You're making this personal.”
“You made it personal when you called my lender.”
He looked away.
Clara lowered her voice.
“Stay out of my finances.”
Silas met her eyes again.
“If your field becomes a blowing mess, it affects mine.”
“Then complain when that happens.”
“If pests spread—”
“Complain when that happens.”
“If runoff—”
“Complain when it happens.”
She stepped closer.
“But don't invent disasters because you want me frightened enough to quit.”
Silas’s face reddened.
“You're stubborn like your father.”
Clara nodded.
“He taught me.”
Silas left.
Clara watched him cross his pasture.
Her hands were shaking.
Not from fear of Silas.
From Harold Bennett.
She called the bank that afternoon.
Harold answered.
“Clara.”
“Did Silas Crowe talk to you about my field?”
Silence.
Enough.
“Harold.”
“He mentioned concerns.”
“What concerns?”
“Waste material.”
“It’s peanut hull mulch and compost.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Clara heard irritation enter her voice and forced it back.
Harold said:
“The bank doesn't dictate agronomic practice.”
“But?”
“No but.”