By the time Walter Granger arrived, they had already used four recovery trucks, a hydraulic crane, two hundred feet of steel cable, and enough horsepower to drag a loaded grain trailer through concrete.
The combine had moved eleven inches.
Down.
Keith Torrence stood in ankle-deep water beside the rear axle of his largest recovery rig and watched another black wave of Iowa mud squeeze around the combine’s front tires.
“Kill it!”
A worker slapped both hands over his head.
“Kill the pull!”
The diesel engines dropped to idle. The steel cable sagged. For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Rain hammered the soybean field so hard that the surrounding farmland seemed to disappear behind a gray curtain. The stuck machine was a nearly new high-capacity combine weighing well over twenty tons before counting the fuel in its tank and the mud now packed beneath it. Its grain tank was empty. Its header had already been removed. None of that mattered. The front tires were buried almost to their hubs. One rear tire had disappeared past the lower rim. Brown water swirled through the ruts. Every time the crews pulled, the combine seemed to settle deeper.
Keith wiped rain from his face.
“Son of a—”
He stopped himself. There were six men within earshot and all six looked as exhausted as he felt.
Keith Torrence was forty-eight years old and had been recovering heavy farm equipment for more than two decades. He had pulled semis from frozen ditches, excavators from riverbanks, loaded grain trucks from washed-out roads, and a bulldozer from a pond once. He understood weight. He understood leverage. He understood anchors, snatch blocks, cable angles, ground pressure, and exactly how quickly a bad recovery could become a deadly one.
But this field had defeated everything he had tried.
The trouble had started that morning. The farmer leasing the ground, Ryan Keller, had been trying to finish soybeans before another week of storms arrived. The forecast had called for light rain after noon. Instead, rain began at ten-thirty. By eleven, the northwest corner of the field was already soft. Ryan had turned the combine toward the field entrance. He made it perhaps eighty yards. Then the left front tire broke through. He tried reversing. Wrong decision. The right tire sank. He stopped immediately and called for help.
A neighboring tractor arrived first. It couldn’t move the combine. Then a larger four-wheel-drive farm tractor came. The tow strap stretched tight. Nothing.
Keith’s company arrived at 12:40. At first he had not been worried.
“Seen worse.”
That was what he’d told Ryan.
Three hours later, nobody was saying that anymore.
Keith had positioned one recovery truck on the county road. Another sat near the field entrance. A third was chained to the second as an anchor. Steel cable ran across the flooded ground to the combine. When that failed, Keith changed angles. When that failed, they brought in ground mats. The mats disappeared beneath the recovery truck’s tires. Then came the hydraulic crane from another job site fourteen miles away. Its operator took one look at the soil and refused to bring it closer. So they used the crane only to unload timbers and additional equipment. Then the rain intensified. The combine sank another three inches.
At 3:17 p.m., Ryan looked at Keith and asked the question neither man wanted to discuss.
“How long before we can’t get it out at all?”
Keith stared at the machine.
“We’ll get it.”
Ryan said nothing. Keith heard the doubt anyway.
Then one of his workers, Cody, looked toward the county road.
“What the hell is that?”
Keith turned.
Something green was coming through the rain. Slowly. Very slowly. A faded two-cylinder tractor rattled along the shoulder pulling a small wagon.
Cody squinted.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
The tractor turned onto the field approach. Its narrow front tires cut through the shallow water. Its green paint had faded almost to gray in places. The yellow wheels were scratched and rusted around the edges. The exhaust stack puffed rhythmically beneath the rain.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Cody started laughing.
“Keith.”
Keith didn’t answer.
“Keith, I think reinforcements are here.”
Two other men turned. One whistled.
“Is that a Model 50?”
The old tractor stopped before the worst of the mud. The man operating it shut down the engine. Silence replaced the slow two-cylinder beat.
Then Walter Granger climbed down.
He was seventy-four. Lean. White-haired. Weathered enough that the lines around his eyes looked carved there. He wore denim overalls beneath a soaked brown canvas coat and a faded seed-corn cap. Mud already covered his boots before he even reached them.
Cody looked at the antique tractor. Then at the buried combine. He couldn’t resist.
“Four recovery rigs failed.”
Walter continued walking.
Cody pointed behind him.
“That antique won’t last five minutes out here.”
Walter did not even look at him. He stopped twenty feet from the combine. Not in front of it. Not beside the cable. He looked at the ground.
Keith noticed that. Everybody who had arrived that afternoon looked at the combine first. Walter didn’t. He looked at the water. Then the ruts. Then the field. He walked ten yards east. Pressed his boot into the soil. Moved another six feet. Did it again. Then crouched.
Keith frowned.
Walter pushed three fingers into the mud. Lifted a handful. Squeezed it. Dark water ran between his fingers. He dropped it. Walked south. Repeated the process.
Cody whispered to another worker.
“Maybe he’s looking for worms.”
The other man laughed.
Walter heard them. Still no reaction.
Then the combine made a sound. Not mechanical. A deep wet sucking noise came from beneath the front axle. Everyone looked. The machine settled another inch.
Ryan swore. Keith raised his hand toward the recovery crew.
“Nobody touches that winch.”
Walter turned.