“Yes.”
“And then what? A deputy comes, takes a statement. There’s a report, maybe a charge. A year goes by. A lawyer gets involved. Meanwhile your grandmother, who is eighty-four and lives in Dwayne’s basement, has to choose between her sons. You and I stand up in a courtroom and watch a man cry who is, God help us, your father’s only brother.”
“He deserves it.”
“Maybe he does.” I kept my voice steady. “But hay doesn’t wait for justice, Ben. Cows eat every day. I had about four weeks to get this stack back before the weather turned. If I’d gone the other way, I’d have been right, and the cows would have been at the sale barn, and we’d have had our principles and no ranch.”
He was quiet.
“I didn’t want to win,” I said. “I wanted the hay back. Those aren’t the same thing.”
