Malik picked up another.
Different hole pattern.
He turned it over.
Different casting number.
“By weight?”
“That was the plan.”
A scrap buyer standing several yards away heard them.
He walked closer.
He was a heavy man wearing brown coveralls and a cap advertising a fertilizer company.
“Those plates?”
The buyer grinned.
“I figured I'd haul them with the rest of the iron if nobody bid.”
Malik looked from him to the crates.
“What would the scrap bring?”
The buyer shrugged.
“Depends what they're paying Monday.”
“How much for all of it?”
The assistant looked amused.
“You seriously want nine hundred seed plates?”
“Maybe.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I don't know yet.”
The scrap buyer laughed.
“That's a strong business plan.”
Malik ignored him.
He opened the second crate.
More plates.
Some narrow.
Some thick.
Some with rows of small cells.
Others with larger openings.
Several had manufacturer symbols he recognized from old equipment manuals at Bell's shop.
International Harvester.
John Deere.
Allis-Chalmers.
Oliver.
Maybe others.
He did not know enough yet.
That was exactly what interested him.
Malik stood.
“I’ll give you a hundred fifty for all nine crates.”
The assistant stared.
The scrap buyer looked at him.
“Boy, you know that stuff weighs a ton?”
“Not literally.”
“You know what I mean.”
The assistant shook his head.
“Hundred fifty's low.”
“What were you expecting for scrap?”
He did not answer.
Malik waited.
Auctions had taught him one thing that morning.
The person who kept talking usually lost.
The assistant finally said, “Two hundred.”
Malik counted mentally.
He had $197.
He needed gas money for the week.
“One eighty.”
The assistant looked toward the main auction.
The auctioneer's voice rose over the building.
“Sold! Twelve hundred dollars!”
The assistant shrugged.
“One eighty. Take all of it.”
Malik pulled out his wallet.
The scrap buyer started laughing.
Not cruelly.
More in disbelief.
“Boy just bought scrap iron by the piece instead of by the pound.”
Malik handed over the money.
The assistant wrote a receipt.
“Good luck sorting it.”
Malik took the paper.
He had seventeen dollars left.
For several seconds, he stared at the receipt.
900 assorted planter seed plates.
$180.
His entire summer suddenly felt very heavy.
The scrap buyer patted him on the shoulder.
“Don't worry. If you get tired of looking at them, I'll still buy them for scrap.”
Malik nodded.
“Maybe.”
He found Otis Bell fifteen minutes later.
Mr. Bell was standing near a box of old magnetos, talking to a retired farmer.
At sixty-eight, Otis Bell was lean, gray-haired, and permanently slightly stooped from five decades spent leaning over engines.
His hands looked like the machines he repaired.
Scarred.
Dark around the nails.
Strong despite age.
He had owned Bell Farm Equipment Repair for thirty-two years.
Before that, he worked for two dealerships and spent several years servicing equipment directly on farms.
There were few agricultural machines in the county he had not worked on at least once.
Malik waited until the other man walked away.
“Mr. Bell.”
Bell glanced at him.
“You buy something?”
“Yes.”
“Tools?”
“No.”
Bell looked immediately suspicious.