Chapter 4: Combine Weather

Friday night at the Dunmore Farmers Co-op, the harvest crew got paid.

I knew because the audit sheet said to bring the week's tickets by six, and because Soren had added in pen, *in person.*

I came at six with a banker's box of ticket stubs on my hip and my braid still wet from the shower.

The elevator office sat at the foot of the bins, a low cinder-block building with the loading leg towering behind it.

Twenty hands stood in the yard between the trucks, drinking from a cooler.

Soren stood on the office steps with a gray metal cash box.

He was paying them out of his own pocket, hand to hand, in twenties, with a nod for each man.

I saw it and thought nothing of it, except that the co-op had a payroll window and he wasn't using it.

"Brennick," he said.

"You're early."

"I'm on time."

He took the box from my hip, set it on the step, and turned over the first stub.

The hands drifted closer.

I'd known they would.

He had made this a show.

"Ticket four-one-two," he said, loud, for the yard.

"Hansen wheat, Monday.

"Gross seventy-one thousand four hundred at Ridley Siding."

He looked up at me with that flat face.

"Our scale had the same truck at forty pounds light when it came across the Dunmore bed an hour later."

A hand laughed.

Another said, "Scale house girl can't add."

I didn't take the stub.

I looked down the row at the truck he meant, a green Peterbilt idling at the end, and at the driver leaning on the grille.

"Gross seventy-one thousand four hundred," I said.

"Tare twenty-nine thousand eight sixty, net forty-one thousand five forty.

"It's ticket four-one-two, and it left my bed at seven-ten Monday morning.

"It crossed yours Tuesday at eleven-fifteen, after the driver stopped for fuel."

The yard had gone quiet.

"Nobody lost forty pounds on the scale," I said.

"His tailgate chain's cut.

"He's been sifting wheat out the gate since the Cooper Road turn.

"Look at it."

Soren turned.

The hands turned.

The driver of the green Peterbilt, a heavy man with a gray beard, ducked and looked at his tailgate.

A chain hung from it, cut clean.

"Hell," the driver said.

"That's where my wheat's been going."

Somebody whooped, and this time nobody was laughing at me.

I stood on the bottom step with the box on my hip and watched Soren Holloran take it.