Adah laughed.
“You remember.”
“I signed the receipt.”
Walt looked at him.
“You sold that for eleven dollars?”
“Scrap value.”
Walt shook his head.
“District deserved to flood.”
Vernon glared.
“Careful.”
Walt pointed upstream.
“North Canal gate still open?”
Vernon’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
Walt looked toward the floodwater.
“That’s your real problem.”
Vernon nodded.
“We can’t close it.”
Walt looked at Adah’s winch.
Everyone followed his gaze.
Adah stood straighter.
“No.”
Vernon blinked.
“What?”
“That winch just pulled my cattle out.”
“We need it at the gate.”
“You called it junk thirty minutes ago.”
“Adah.”
“No.”
The water surged harder across the road.
Walt stepped between them.
“If the North Canal gate stays open another two hours, you won’t care who called what junk.”
Adah looked at him.
“What happens?”
“Diversion channel overtops.”
“Where?”
“Downstream.”
Her stomach tightened.
“My farm?”
Walt nodded.
“Your farm. Donnelly’s. Maybe town edge.”
Earl cursed.
Vernon said, “We need the machine.”
Adah looked at the cattle trailer.
Safe now.
Then toward her fields.
“Load it.”
The old winch returned to the same canal where it had worked decades earlier.
This time nobody laughed.
The North Canal structure sat amid violent brown water.
The electric actuator box was dead.
District workers had removed the motor cover.
Wires hung wet.
The steel gate stood almost completely open.
Water thundered through.
Walt climbed onto the concrete platform.
He looked twenty years younger the moment his boots touched it.
“Original mounting bolts?”
Vernon pointed.
“Still there.”
Walt crouched.
“Spacing hasn’t changed.”
Adah looked at the old winch.
“You’re saying it’ll fit?”
Walt smiled.
“They built this gate around that machine.”
A loader lifted the winch onto the pad.
The bolt holes aligned.
Perfectly.
Nobody spoke.
Vernon looked embarrassed enough to disappear into the rain.
They secured the frame.
Connected the gate cable.
Walt inspected everything.
Then he handed the crank to Adah.
“You bought it.”
She looked toward him.
“You know it better.”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head.
“But you brought it back to life.”
Adah took the handle.
Vernon said, “How long?”
Walt looked at the gate.
“Forty minutes.”
Vernon cursed.
“The channel could overtop before then.”
Walt shrugged.
“You wanted fast.”
Then he looked directly at him.
“This is what slow buys you.”
Adah began turning.