“I have it on dispatch. Beautifully done.” “Earl, what time tomorrow?” “6:45. The KSP unit is staged at the Marathon station on 627. They will move on the wedding crowd at 7:05, just as your PTO turns on.” “Earl, thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Wyatt, get some sleep. Your father would be proud.”
I hung up. I sat on the porch another hour. The diesel generator hummed. The white bulb lights twinkled. A cool October wind came in from the west, smelling of cut hay and the slow patient ground of a county my family had farmed since Laetitia Anders sold us the deed in 1894. I set the alarm for five. I did not sleep. I did not need to. The fire was already lit.
Saturday morning, October 18th, was the kind of clear bluegrass dawn that smells like coffee from three miles away. I woke at 4:45. I made a pot of coffee in the percolator that had been Maggie’s. I put on the flannel shirt she had given me for Christmas in 2020. I walked out to the equipment barn at 5:15.
I started the John Deere 7250R. I let it warm up for twenty minutes. I checked the manure-spreader hitch. I checked the four-thousand-gallon tank, already filled to two thousand gallons the night before by my hired hand, Sonny Allbritton, who had been with me since 1998. The tank had a fan-spray nozzle calibrated to a thirty-foot arc at standard PTO speed. I greased the gimbals one last time. I checked the pressure gauge. I checked the wind.
Three knots out of the west, steady. Perfect distribution conditions for a hayfield application in mid-October. Pat Brenneman herself could not have asked for better. Hollis pulled up at 6:09 in his 2014 Buick. He climbed up into the cab. He buckled himself in. He looked at me through the windshield. He nodded once.
Sheriff Earl Van Sant arrived at 6:28 in a county pickup followed by two cruisers with their lights off. “Counselor, you riding shotgun?” “Sheriff, I have been waiting on this case since 1962.” “Wyatt, KSP just radioed. They’re staged at the Marathon. They’ll move the moment you turn on the PTO. Madison is in Versailles. The Garrison barn is full. Pastor Hatfield is officiating at two. Madison’s uncle is walking her down the aisle.”
I closed my eyes for one second, then I opened them. “Let’s go.” I pulled the John Deere out of the equipment barn at 6:43. Earl’s pickup pulled in behind me. The two cruisers fell in line. We drove the half mile to the gate of the west field. The diesel generator across the field was running. The catering trucks were unloading. Two hundred white folding chairs were lined up under the largest sailcloth tent.