Chapter 6: Six A.M. at the Elevator

For two weeks I had phoned every name in Grandpa's address book.

Nobody picked up, and nobody called back.

So on the last Thursday in May I went to the one place in Pratt County where they can't hang up on you.

The coffee crowd at the Co-op café meets at six o'clock, and the whole county knows better than to be late.

I walked in at five fifty-five with Colby behind me.

A room full of men in seed caps stopped talking in the middle of their sentences.

A fork stayed in the air.

The waitress poured two cups of coffee without asking and said, "Well," in a way that covered everything.

"Morning," I said.

Nobody answered.

I took a stool at the counter, and Colby took the one next to it and kept his hat on his knee.

He'd offered to wait in the truck.

I had said no, because if I was going to be the girl who married a Henning, I'd be her out loud.

"I'll make this short," I said, turning on the stool.

"Harvest starts the seventeenth, and my crew canceled."

"I need a cart driver, two trucks, and anyone who can run a combine for a day."

"I'll pay custom rate, in cash, the same day."

The heavy man at the head of the big booth wiped his mouth with a napkin.

He had chaired the co-op board since before I could drive.

He had once told me I would never learn to back up a trailer.

I learned in a week out of spite.

"Heard the place was tied up in the estate," he said.