“Wade, what are you doing?”
“Taking my cows home.”
“You don’t have to.”
“They’re my responsibility.”
“Leave them here. I’m not going to charge you.”
I secured the trailer gate.
“I know you wouldn’t.”
“Then why move them?”
“Because it’s your land now.”
Phil frowned.
“We’re brothers.”
I looked at him.
“I know.”
He tried again.
“Where will you put forty cows?”
“I’ll find pasture.”
“Wade—”
“I’ll figure it out.”
I climbed into the pickup and drove away.
In the mirror, Phil remained beside the gate.
Behind him stood our childhood home.
The yellow curtain Mom had hung in the kitchen window years earlier was still there.
I looked away before the road blurred.
I rented pasture from Mrs. Nielsen, a widow north of Elba.
Her husband had been a friend of Dad’s.
She agreed to rent me enough grazing land for five months.
The cost came to thirteen thousand dollars.
It was money I’d never expected to spend.
But my cattle needed grass.
Then I visited the local agricultural cooperative.
Jeff, the manager, had known me since Little League.
He listened when I asked whether he needed help during the spring.
He didn’t ask why I wasn’t working on Dad’s farm.
I appreciated that.
“Still have your commercial driver’s license?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I need someone to haul fertilizer and help at the feed mill. Twenty-three dollars an hour.”
“When can I start?”
“Monday.”
So a man who’d spent twenty-two years helping operate four hundred acres began hauling fertilizer to other people’s fields.
Every morning, I fed my own cattle before sunrise.
Then I went to work.
In the evenings, I returned home and handled whatever chores remained.
Dad’s feed truck was far more equipment than forty cows required.
But I used it anyway.
Every morning at five-thirty, I climbed into that cab.
His gloves were still on the dashboard.
And every morning, I quietly said hello.
I knew how foolish it sounded.
But it was the closest thing I had to talking to him.
—
When April arrived, I began watching the weather.
Not because I had a crop to plant.
Because I knew exactly when Dad’s fields should be planted.
The ground beneath the center pivot warmed slowly.
Dad always waited until the soil reached fifty degrees at a depth of four inches, measured at seven in the morning for three consecutive days.
He kept a soil thermometer hanging on a nail in the shop.
He also carried a small green notebook.
Inside were decades of information about the farm.
Seed populations.
Planter adjustments.
Irrigation settings.
Equipment problems.
