“Yes.”
Clara shook her head.
“Not like this. Too late.”
His shoulders dropped.
“But you can stop leaving soil bare.”
He looked back.
“Straw?”
“Anything that blocks direct sun without causing another problem.”
“Will it save the corn?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
Clara hesitated.
“I’ve got old wheat straw behind the north barn.”
Earl looked at her.
“How much?”
“Maybe eight bales worth.”
“I can pay.”
“Take it.”
“I said I can pay.”
“And I said take it.”
He stared at her.
Then nodded once.
“Thank you.”
Day forty-three.
Temperature: one hundred three.
Day forty-five.
A hot wind arrived from the southwest.
It blew for nine hours.
Leaves burned along road edges.
Soybeans wilted.
Farmers who had wells irrigated continuously.
Those without enough water watched.
The treated eighteen acres suffered for the first time.
Clara walked the rows after sunset.
Pumpkin leaves sagged.
Pepper plants drooped.
The corn curled.
She knelt and pushed the probe.
Ten inches.
Still moisture.
Less.
But there.
She pressed a fistful of soil.
It barely held shape.
Clara felt fear enter her chest.
Not panic.
Something quieter.
She had known the stored water would not last forever.
No soil could create rain.
The experiment was not magic.
It only changed how long the field could use what had already fallen.
The question was whether that difference would last long enough.
At home, she opened the developer’s offer again.
She did not read the price.
She knew it.
Instead, she read the expiration clause.
Ten days.
The developer had renewed the offer twice.
This version would expire on day fifty-five of the drought.
Clara placed it beside her notebook.
If the crop failed before then, she could still sell.
Maybe.
Unless the drought lowered the land value.
Unless the buyer renegotiated.
Unless the bank moved first.
She slept three hours.
At dawn she drove the field.
The plants had recovered overnight.
Not fully.
Enough.
Day forty-seven.
The county agent arrived with another man.
Tall.
Thin.
Late fifties.
University extension badge clipped to his belt.
Clara recognized the logo.
The agent introduced him as a soil scientist from Kansas State.
Clara immediately felt defensive.
The scientist shook her hand.
“I’m not here to tell you what you did wrong.”
“That’s comforting.”
He smiled.
“I’m here because I saw the infiltration numbers.”
They spent four hours taking samples.
Treated strips.
Control strips.
Different depths.
Bulk density.
Moisture.
Temperature.
Organic matter.
The scientist asked questions faster than Clara could answer.