“More than some people.”
He grinned.
“Still take an hour to open a gate.”
“Probably.”
“Electric does it in ninety seconds.”
“I remember.”
Vernon stirred sugar into his coffee.
“District bought six new electric units.”
“How much?”
“Little under four grand each.”
Adah nearly choked.
“Four thousand?”
“Installed.”
She looked down at her coffee.
Eleven dollars and forty cents.
Vernon saw the expression.
“Now you understand why old iron is old.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Adah looked at him.
“Fast isn’t the only thing machinery does.”
Vernon laughed.
“No, but it’s usually why we buy new machinery.”
The rains continued.
By the third week of May, the Platte tributaries rose.
The irrigation district began sending crews to inspect gates twice daily.
Water pressed against structures designed decades earlier.
Sandbags appeared near low roads.
Adah’s western pasture flooded first.
Nothing unusual.
It happened every few years.
Then Sand Creek rose over its bank.
That was unusual.
The North Canal diversion structure sat two miles upstream from Adah’s farm.
The district used it to control how much water entered a secondary channel crossing several farms.
The original manual gate had been replaced with an electric actuator three years earlier.
The old winch Adah owned had once operated that exact gate.
She thought about that every time she drove past.
The old mounting pad remained beside the new motor housing.
On May 24, heavy rain started before dawn.
By breakfast, two inches had fallen.
By noon, four.
Radio reports warned of flash flooding across three counties.
Adah moved cattle from the low pasture.
She parked machinery on higher ground.
Then she checked the livestock trailer.
An old rust-red stock trailer.
Ugly but solid.
She used it to move twelve yearling cattle to the barn lot.
The road already had six inches of water crossing it.
At three in the afternoon, Vernon’s district truck came flying down the county road.
Adah waved.
He braked.
Window down.
“You seen North Canal?”
“No.”
“Gate won’t close.”
Adah’s stomach tightened.
“Electric unit?”
“Dead.”
“What happened?”
“Control box flooded.”
“Manual override?”
“Gearbox won’t engage.”
“How much water?”
“Too much.”
He accelerated away.
Adah stood beside the road.
North Canal.
Dead electric winch.
High water.
She looked toward the machine shed.
Then back toward the road.
No.
The old machine weighed four hundred pounds.
Too slow.
No mounting frame.
No reason anyone would listen.
She went back to the cattle.
By four, the rain became violent.
Wind drove water sideways.
Ditches overflowed.
Adah loaded six cattle into the stock trailer intending to move them to a neighbor’s elevated pasture.
She should have waited.
That decision haunted her for years.
The county road looked passable.
Water covered only the lowest section.
She drove into it.
Halfway across, the trailer wheels dropped into a washed-out shoulder.
The truck lurched.
Cattle slammed against the side rails.
Adah hit the brake.
Water rushed around the wheels.
She tried reverse.