The girl nodded.
Neither spoke.
At eight that evening, headlights came up the drive.
The older farmer from the fence jumped out.
Rain ran from his cap.
“Road east is going under.”
The mother stepped onto the porch.
“How long?”
“Hard to say.”
“Sheriff says anybody planning to leave should use the west road now.”
The girl looked toward his truck.
“Your place?”
He glanced toward the fields.
“House is fine.”
“Lower ground isn’t.”
He looked toward her acre.
For the first time since March, there was no humor in his face.
“Yours is holding better.”
The girl said nothing.
He continued.
“My south field is cutting bad.”
“Real bad.”
She wanted to say:
I told you.
The sentence appeared fully formed.
Then disappeared.
There was nothing satisfying about watching someone lose soil.
She asked:
“Cattle okay?”
He nodded.
“Moved them.”
The mother made the decision.
They would leave.
Not because the house was already threatened.
Because waiting until it was threatened would be foolish.
They loaded the pickup.
The older farmer escorted them toward higher ground at a relative’s house.
The girl looked backward through the rear window.
The farm disappeared behind rain.
She did not sleep that night.
Nobody did.
Radio reports came every hour.
Water over roads.
Creeks out of banks.
A bridge closed.
River rising.
Several families evacuated.
No deaths reported.
That was what mattered.
The girl repeated that silently.
No deaths.
Everything else could be repaired somehow.
Dawn came pale and wet.
Rain weakened.
They returned as soon as officials reopened the west road.
The pickup moved slowly.
Branches covered pavement.
Ditches overflowed.
Every low place became a pond.
Then they reached County Road 7.
The girl’s mother stopped the truck.
Nobody spoke.
The neighboring fields looked wounded.
That was the only word the girl could find.
Brown water had cut across several freshly cultivated sections.
Topsoil lay piled in road ditches.
Corn rows disappeared beneath sediment in low places.
One field contained three deep channels where smooth spring soil had given water an easy path.
Fence posts leaned.
Debris hung against wire.
The older farmer stood near his south field staring.
He did not wave.
The girl’s farm was damaged too.
Water had entered the lower crop ground.
Several rows were flattened.
The drainage cut was full.
One corner near the creek stood underwater.
But the rough acre was still there.
Changed.
Half flattened.
Covered in sediment.
Branches and crop residue tangled across the vegetation.
Yet intact.
The girl climbed from the truck.
Her boots sank.
She walked slowly toward it.
Her mother followed.
At the upper edge, runoff had entered in several places.
Inside the acre, flow had spread.
The rye and grass had bent almost completely over.
Mud lines marked the height water reached.
Near the bottom, several inches of dark sediment had collected among dense stems.
Below that point, the field showed erosion.
But nothing like the neighboring property.
The girl crouched.
She touched the sediment.
Her mother stood behind her.
“Did it work?”
The girl looked around.
“I think so.”