[laughter]"Holloway went and hired himself a crew.""I don't need the birds to think they're men. I just need them to never know when a real one is out there.""That's a cute theory from a man who can't afford one cannon.""I only asked to borrow one. For a few days.""And I said no. Mine fire every 12 minutes, sunup to sundown, same spots. Set it once and walk away.""Same spots every single day?""If it works, you don't move it. Cut your crop early, son. 42 acres was never worth a cannon.""I'm not cutting green sorghum because you ran out of room for me on a list," Darius said. "And don't call me son."Vivian stopped with one hand on her truck door. "Then call me in October. That lease offer's still on the table.""Nobody's leasing this land. Not this year."Travis laughed and kept taking pictures. Walter said nothing.Then the truck pulled out, leaving dust over the 42 acres his grandfather bought in 1961.The loan payment was due in October, and Darius had no backup if this crop failed. He picked up the next shirt.14 stakes stood across the field, each numbered in black paint, bunched along the north tree line, the east ditch, and the low corner by the fence. He had only six shirts. So why would a man defending his whole season with straw leave eight of those stakes standing empty?Two days before anyone laughed at him, Darius Holloway was standing waist-deep in sorghum at first light, pressing his thumbnail into a kernel. It gave a little, then held. Soft dough turning hard. Two more weeks, maybe three, and the heads would be where he wanted them. Cut any sooner and the grain would come in light and wet, and the elevator would dock him for it.He walked back to the truck and wrote the date in the small notebook he kept in his shirt pocket: August 22nd.His father's cap still sat on the dashboard where Marcus Holloway had tossed it the last week of February. Darius hadn't moved it. His dad died in March in the shop of a heart attack before a single seed went into the ground. Darius planted all 42 acres himself and signed the operating loan himself. He had read the payment terms so many times he no longer needed to check them: $9,400 due the middle of October.His mother had been home from her night shift at the hospital in Forrest City for 20 minutes when he came in for coffee. Denise didn't sit down. She leaned against the counter in her scrubs and said it the way she'd said it twice before."Dean Ashford's lease offer is still good. Nobody would blame you, baby.""Not yet."She studied him for a long moment, then nodded and went to bed.