Harold continued pumping grease.
“Maybe.”
Tommy climbed onto the rear wheel.
“You said it was mine someday.”
Harold stopped.
He had forgotten saying that.
Probably because Tommy had been six at the time.
“You remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember to close the chicken gate?”
Tommy looked away.
“That’s different.”
Harold laughed.
Then became serious.
“Things change.”
Tommy rubbed one hand over the faded red fender.
“How come Grandpa bought this one?”
Harold shrugged.
“He needed a tractor.”
“No. Why this one?”
Harold opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
He realized he did not know.
Thomas had never told the story.
As far as Harold understood, his father had bought it secondhand from a dealer around 1950.
Maybe 1951.
Cheap enough that his mother complained about the expense but not enough to stop him.
That was the entire family history of the machine.
A tractor appeared.
Then became part of the farm.
August arrived like an open furnace.
By ten in the morning, heat shimmered above the county roads.
Corn leaves curled.
Cattle crowded whatever shade they could find.
Half the topsoil in southern Kansas seemed ready to become airborne.
Harold finally accepted that waiting would not improve his finances.
On Saturday, August 19, he washed the Farmall.
Not thoroughly.
Kansas dust resisted ceremony.
He checked the oil.
Filled the radiator.
Then drove the battered red tractor onto the small equipment trailer behind his 1959 Chevrolet pickup.
Ellen watched from the porch.
“Last chance.”
Harold tightened the chain.
“To do what?”
“Change your mind.”
He looked at the tractor.
“I’m just getting a number.”
Ellen folded her arms.
“That’s what people say right before coming home without the thing they left with.”
He smiled.
“I'll be back by lunch.”
The drive to Coladin County Implement took seventeen miles.
Harold spent most of it trying not to look in the mirror.
Vernon Pitts noticed Harold before Harold entered the showroom.
Salesmen developed instincts about money.
Vernon’s were frequently accurate and occasionally cruel.
He was forty-five.
Slick-backed hair.
White dress shirt despite the heat.
Patterned tie.
Shoes that somehow remained polished inside a tractor dealership.
He had worked there six years and sold enough machinery to believe he could judge a buyer before the door opened.
Harold’s dusty pickup told him one thing.
The old tractor told him another.
Neither said big commission.
“What can I do for you?”
Harold nodded toward the used tractor on the far side of the lot.
“The 560.”
Vernon glanced at his boots.
“You looking or buying?”
“Depends.”
That answer made Vernon smile.
He walked Harold across the yard.
The used tractor was not beautiful.
But it was larger.
Stronger.
Newer.
The kind of machine Harold could use for years if it had been maintained properly.
He checked tires.
Hydraulics.
Oil.
Vernon gave him the sales speech.
Harold ignored most of it.
Finally:
“What are you trading?”
Harold pointed toward the trailer.
Vernon stared.
Then laughed.
“That?”
“It runs.”
“So does my lawn mower.”
Harold said nothing.
Vernon walked around the Farmall as though inspecting livestock he already intended to reject.
“Rear tires are half gone.”
“They've got seasons left.”
“Paint's dead.”
“Paint doesn't pull.”
“Seat's cracked.”
Harold looked at him.
“You planning to farm with the seat?”
One of the nearby customers laughed.
Vernon did not appreciate losing the room.
He changed tone.
“I’m telling you what the market sees.”
“What do you see?”
“Scrap with tires.”
Harold’s jaw tightened.
“Give me a number.”
Vernon went inside.
He returned three minutes later carrying a sheet of paper.
Not because three minutes were required.
Because making desperate customers wait improved leverage.
He held out the appraisal.
TRADE ALLOWANCE: $200
Harold stared at it.
“You serious?”
“Completely.”
“I can get near that for parts.”
“Then take it apart.”
Vernon smiled toward the other men.
“Two hundred is charity.”
And the scene unfolded exactly as it had at the beginning.
The jokes.
The warning.
The kick.
Then the panel fell.
And eighteen years of family history opened with it.
Earl Jensen remained crouched beside the brass plate.
Harold asked:
“You've seen one before?”
Earl nodded slowly.
“One.”
“When?”
The mechanic looked toward the service bay.
“1949.”
Vernon scoffed.
“You remember a plate from eighteen years ago?”
Earl stood.
“I remember that one.”
He pointed at the odd emblem.
“Factory engineering mark.”
Then at the serial.
“And that number isn't a production serial.”
Harold looked confused.
“What is it?”
“Pilot number.”
Vernon folded his arms.
“Meaning?”
Earl ignored him again.
“In the late forties, the company sent field-test machines out through selected dealers.”
Harold stared at the tractor.
“This one?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Earl looked at him.
“If it's the machine I think it is, your father didn't buy it off a normal lot.”
Harold felt something cold despite the heat.
“What do you mean?”
Earl walked to the tractor’s left side.
Bent down.
Ran his fingers along the casting.
Then stopped at a small welded reinforcement Harold had seen thousands of times.
Earl smiled.
“There.”
“What?”
“That brace.”
“It’s ugly.”
“It wasn't supposed to be pretty.”
Earl wiped more dust away.
“I welded that.”
Harold stared.
“You?”
“Your father cracked the original mount during spring testing.”
Vernon’s expression changed.
Harold stepped closer.
“You knew my father?”
Earl looked almost offended.
“Everybody knew Tom Brennan.”
“I mean this tractor.”
Earl nodded.