Earl saw him through the window of the hydraulics room and did not stop working. He finished seating the spool he was installing, checked it, wiped his hands, and only then walked out to the front.
Gordon was standing in the showroom, looking at the three rebuilt tractors on display. Each had a cardboard tag hanging from the steering wheel, the same kind Earl had hung on Unit One, though now the tags were printed and laminated, and each one carried a record number. Gordon was reading one of them closely.
"Mr. Whitaker," he said, turning, and held out his hand. "Good to see you."
"Gordon."
They shook. Gordon's grip was firm and practiced.
"I'll be honest with you," Gordon said, "I didn't expect any of this. When I walked that row at the auction, I thought you'd lost your mind. I told half the county so." He smiled, and the smile was almost sheepish. "I was wrong. I don't say that often. I'm saying it now."
"Appreciate it."
"Could we talk? Somewhere private?"
---
They sat in the office, Earl behind the old steel desk, Gordon in the chair across from it. Megan sat at her own desk by the window, and Ray, who had come in early from his shift because Megan had texted him the moment Gordon's truck pulled in, stood leaning against the filing cabinet with his arms crossed.
Gordon did not waste time. He opened a folder and slid a single sheet of paper across the desk.
"I want to buy you out," he said. "The inventory, every part on those shelves. The equipment, the test stands, the dyno, all of it. The lease on this building. The customer accounts, including the McDaniel contract. And the business itself, the name, the records, the systems your daughter-in-law built. Everything."
Earl looked at the paper. He did not touch it.
Ray, from where he stood, could see the number. He read it twice, the way he had read Megan's spreadsheet that first spring. It was more money than his father had made in the last fifteen years of running the shop on the state road combined. It was enough to retire on. Really retire. A new roof, a new truck, a trip somewhere warm in winter, and money left over for a long time after that.
"That's a serious offer," Gordon said. "Cash. I've had my people look at your numbers, as much of them as I could see from the outside. I'm paying a premium. You'd stay on, if you wanted to, as a consultant. Good salary. Fewer hours. Let my people handle the business side." He leaned back. "You're seventy-two years old, Earl. You've earned the right to slow down."
Earl was quiet.