“The young couple,” Arlen said, at my elbow. “They’ve got the last thirty-two. Fellow by the name of Reyes, new to the county. They bought the old Lindgren place. You’ll want to talk to them yourself.”
“I’ll go tomorrow.”
“I could drive you.”
“I’ve got a pie.”
“You’ve got a pie for everyone,” Arlen said, and for the first time all day his mouth twitched toward a smile.
I counted twelve more at the end of the row and realized, with a small cold shock, that Gene had unloaded his full hundred and had also brought a dozen from his own stack. I didn’t ask. I looked at him across the yard, big and bearded, sipping coffee out of the thermos Ben had handed him, and I understood that some debts don’t show up on paper.
Ben climbed down from the tractor. He walked to me across the dust, with his father’s loose-limbed stride, and stopped.
