Clara carried water to the chickens.
Checked the pump.
Walked the field.
At eleven-thirty, Earl arrived.
He did not get out of the truck.
He honked.
Clara walked over.
“What?”
He pointed west.
A line of clouds.
She looked.
Dark.
Too dark to trust.
“Forecast?”
“Forty percent.”
“That means sixty percent not.”
“You’re cheerful.”
“I’ve learned.”
Earl laughed.
Then his smile faded.
“My corn’s done.”
Clara looked toward the south.
“I’m sorry.”
“Insurance’ll cover some.”
He rubbed the steering wheel.
“Still hurts.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her field.
“Yours won’t make normal yield.”
“No.”
“But it’ll make something.”
“Yes.”
Earl nodded slowly.
“Daniel would’ve been proud.”
Clara looked at him.
This time the sentence did not feel like a weapon.
She swallowed.
“Thanks.”
He drove away.
At 1:07 p.m., thunder sounded.
Clara stood beside the barn.
One rumble.
Then another.
Wind moved through the cottonwoods.
The temperature dropped.
A smell rose from the ground.
Dust.
Leaves.
Electric air.
Clara walked into the yard.
The first drop landed on her shoulder.
Another hit the roof.
Then another.
She did not move.
Rain began.
Slow.
Steady.
Not violent.
The kind of rain farmers dream about.
The kind that has time to enter.
Clara walked toward the eastern field.
Within minutes, her shirt was wet.
Her hair came loose.
Mud formed beneath her boots.
She laughed.
Then cried.
Then laughed again.
The field darkened.
Straw flattened.
Water disappeared into the soil.
On the untreated strips, puddles formed sooner.
Clara noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Even then.
The engineer inside the farmer.
The farmer inside the daughter.
She drove the infiltration ring into the ground in the middle of a rainstorm.
By the time the county agent arrived an hour later, she had three measurements.
He stepped from his truck and stared at her.
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
“You’re testing during the storm?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
“How much?”
She shouted the number.
His expression changed.
“That fast?”
“Yes.”
They ran the control.
Slower.
Much slower.
Clara looked across the field.