The real test came in November, when a hard freeze hit two weeks early and caught half the county with beans still in the field. I had thirty acres of my own and a hundred and forty of contracted work standing out there, and by the time the freeze broke we had three days of window before the next system. Every operator in the county was running eighteen-hour days. Ruth Okafor called me on the second morning and asked if I could take on a farmer out on County 14 whose operator had broken an axle and couldn't get a part until December.
I said yes before I knew whose farm it was. Then she told me, and I stood in the shop with the phone against my ear for a second longer than I needed to.
Diesel on my gloves. A rag on the bench that had been there since Tuesday. The radio had gone to static
