The words did not enter me all at once. They came slowly, like water soaking dry ground.
“How much beyond?”
“Our contract price assumed a certain density. These early samples are testing nearly twelve times higher.”
I gripped the edge of the SUV hood.
“And that means?”
“It means Marlowe will renegotiate upward.”
I closed my eyes.
For one breath, I saw Silas at the kitchen table, pencil in hand, writing notes nobody believed mattered.
Then Helena said, “But there is a problem.”
Of course there was.
“The seed heads are drying too fast. If we wait, the pods will shatter. Once the seed hits contaminated soil, it may fail purity standards.”
“How long?”
“Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.”
I looked across 300 acres of damaged, tangled, dying crop.
I had one tractor that barely started, no combine suited for the job, cracked ribs, no crew, no money, and a town waiting to celebrate my failure.
Helena watched my face.
“Can you harvest it?”
“No,” I said.
Then I thought of Boyd’s boot on my shoulder.
I thought of the bank envelope.
I thought of my mother’s ashes in the south pasture and my grandfather’s note in the ammunition box.
I pulled out my phone.
“But I know who hates Boyd enough to try.”
Part 3
Ray Bowers answered on the seventh ring with wind roaring through the phone.
“If you’re selling insurance, I already died.”
“Ray, it’s Caleb Raines.”
Silence.
Then, “Well, I’ll be damned. Heard Kincaid finally ran you into the ditch.”
“He tried.”
“Trying is his favorite hobby.”
Ray Bowers had once operated the best custom harvesting crew in three counties. Then Boyd undercut his contracts, bought influence with grain elevators, and squeezed him until Ray lost two machines and most of his pride. Last I heard, he and his sons were running odd harvest jobs out of Lancaster County, taking work nobody else wanted.
“I need combines,” I said.
“You got corn?”
“No.”
“Beans?”
“No.”
A pause.
“You got that devil weed?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
“You calling to invite me to your funeral?”
“I’m calling to offer you $150,000 if you can get 300 acres harvested before tomorrow night.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Boy, people say you’re broke.”
“I am.”
“Then I assume this is faith-based payment.”
“If we get the seed out, Marlowe Therapeutics pays me. If we don’t, nobody gets anything.”
Ray said nothing.
I added, “Boyd poisoned it last night.”
The wind on his end seemed to quiet.
“Did he now?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still harvesting?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it backfired.”
Ray exhaled slowly.
Then he said, “I’ll bring two machines. My boys can bring two more if they ain’t drunk or married by noon.”
“I need you here fast.”