The searchers drifted back toward their trucks, stomping dirt off their boots, clapping each other on the shoulder. Gary Schuler told Ethan to go home and get some sleep. The Kruse brothers said they’d be back at their own beans at first light. Rick Anderberg, in his ruined town shoes, told me to call him Monday about the crop insurance paperwork for Morris’s policy changes.
“There’s no rush,” he said. “But there are some things you should know.”
Marlys Fenske hugged me and said, “Morris was the sweetest boy I ever taught. He used to bring me tomatoes.”
Pastor Ingrid held both my hands and said, “I’m not going to tell you God has a plan. I’m going to tell you I’m bringing a hotdish Tuesday.”
Then it was just Don and me by the combine in the dark.
He took off his seed cap and turned it slowly in his big hands.
“Anna, you ever wonder why Truman’s forty across the road is still standing?”
I hadn’t.
I turned and looked across the gravel road. Truman’s forty acres of soybeans were a dark mass under the stars, brittle and ready, every bit as ready as mine. I’d driven past them every day for three weeks.
I hadn’t noticed. I’d been too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
“He sold his combine in August,” Don said quietly. “That old 9600 his dad left him. Sold it to a guy in Minnesota for forty-one thousand dollars.”
“Why?”
“Because Hampton State Bank called his operating note. He was behind. He’d been behind since last year.” Don looked at the ground. “He was going to run Morris’s combine this fall. Morris told him he would. They’d worked it out.”
I stood there with the keys cold in my glove.
“Morris never told me that.”
“I know he didn’t,” Don said. “Morris asked me not to say anything either. He said Truman was ashamed enough already, and you had plenty on your plate.”
“So Truman threw away the keys to the only combine that could cut his own beans,” I said slowly.
“Yep.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Don.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He put his cap back on. “Unless he figured once you signed his papers, it’d be his combine.”
The pieces fell together in my head all at once, the way they do when you finally find the missing number in a column.
The home eighty. The machine shed. The combine. All of it, for six thousand an acre.
“How bad is it?” I asked. “His money.”
Don hesitated.
“That’s not mine to tell all of,” he said. “But I’ll tell you this. Last month, a fella from a land company in Des Moines was over at Truman’s. Twice. I saw the car. Black Tahoe, Polk County plates.”
I felt cold all the way down to my boots.
“Go home, Anna,” Don said gently. “Get some sleep. Dew’ll burn off by eleven tomorrow. You’ll be done by one if nothing breaks.”
“And then what?”
He looked across the road at Truman’s dark forty.
“That’s up to you,” he said.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.