Chapter 18

By Sunday, the soil had dried enough in the upper layers that the ridges were beginning to hold their shape again when he pressed them.Monday morning, he woke before 4:00 and lay in the dark for a while, not sleeping, running through what he was about to find out. He'd spent four months and most of what he owned on a question that was about to be answered, and there was no version of the next few hours that left anything undecided. Whatever the fork pulled up was going to be the truth, one way or the other.He was at the field by 6:00. Word had moved through the county the way it always did, through the informal channels of a small farming community where people track the weather together and watch each other's land without being asked to.Earl Beckett arrived a few minutes after Bryson, driving slowly up the gravel approach and parking near the gate. He got out without being invited because no invitation was necessary: he had earned his place on this field in the rain two nights before, and both of them understood that.Harvey Denton's truck appeared on the county road not long after and slowed to a stop on the shoulder. Harvey got out and walked toward the fence line without speaking—the same position he'd been taking all summer: close enough to see, careful not to commit to a side.A few of the neighbors who'd come out in the storm were there as well, standing near the gate with the particular quiet of people who've been part of something and want to see how it ends.Louise arrived last, driving her car up to the edge of the field and setting up her folding chair the way she always did: unhurried, deliberate, positioned to see everything clearly.

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