“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“I wanted to call the sheriff.”
“I know.”
“I still do.” His voice shook, just a little. “He took it. He took it, and he lied to Arlen, and he lied to Gene, and he told them you were selling the place. He told them you wanted to. I stood in this yard and watched him. And you just baked a pie.”
I looked at my son. He was tall like Tom, already, with Tom’s shoulders and my stubborn chin, and his eyes were red-rimmed and furious. Seventeen years old. He’d driven a tractor since he was nine.
“I want to tell you why,” I said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I think I do.” I set the clipboard on a bale. “Your father died on a Tuesday. We buried him on a Saturday. And on the Tuesday after, your uncle sat in our kitchen and told me what he’d done, and I could have called the sheriff, and I’d have been right.”
“Yes.”
“And then what? A deputy comes, takes a statement. There’s a report, maybe a charge. A year goes by. A lawyer gets involved. Meanwhile your grandmother, who is eighty-four and lives in Dwayne’s basement, has to choose between her sons. You and I stand up in a courtroom and watch a man cry who is, God help us, your father’s only brother.”
“He deserves it.”
“Maybe he does.” I kept my voice steady. “But hay doesn’t wait for justice, Ben. Cows eat every day. I had about four weeks to get this stack back before the weather turned. If I’d gone the other way, I’d have been right, and the cows would have been at the sale barn, and we’d have had our principles and no ranch.”
He was quiet.
“I didn’t want to win,” I said. “I wanted the hay back. Those aren’t the same thing.”
