The discussion lasted most of the morning. Larkin asked how the bank would verify the grades. Earl proposed joint inspections at designated points and independent review if a disagreement could not be resolved. They discussed what would happen to damaged stock, how freight costs would be documented, and how customer claims would be handled. The conversation was sometimes uncomfortable, but it stayed focused on the work rather than on who had looked foolish eleven years earlier.
By the end of the meeting, the parties had the framework of an arrangement. Earl asked them to take the papers to their respective advisers before signing, because he had learned what a single careless sentence in a contract could cost. Larkin seemed tempted to insist that the bank's standard form was sufficient. Then he looked at the original sale receipt Earl had placed beside his notebook and thought better of it.
"You've still got that?" Larkin asked, pointing to the 1980 bill of sale. Earl unfolded it carefully. "Of course. It tells me what I bought and what I was responsible for. That's why we haven't spent eleven years arguing over who owns those barrels."
Larkin read his own signature and gave a small, rueful smile. "I was very glad to sign this." Earl nodded. "I remember." Neither man laughed.
The final agreement was signed in 1991, after the necessary review and revisions. By then the top end of the market for well-documented, properly conditioned whiskey-oak barrel material had reached around $460 per selected equivalent. Earl used that figure in discussions only as an illustration of what the best material might command, not as a guarantee for every barrel in the bank's lot. The bank accepted a schedule for inspection, processing, and sale based on actual condition.
The first trucks came to the Whitaker farm in early autumn. Unlike the hurried transfer in 1980, the receiving area now had a clear sequence of work and a space for rejecting unsuitable material before it entered the conditioning process. Bank contractors delivered what the agreement allowed, and the damaged stock was removed according to its designated disposal or lower-grade handling plan. Every accepted load received a record the bank and workshop could reconcile.
The difference was visible before the first sale. Workers were no longer running from one task to another merely to make a pile disappear. Walter supervised the receiving inspection, Ray checked the storage arrangements, and Earl reviewed samples that fell close to the boundary between grades. Material moved into the shed only after somebody accepted responsibility for its condition and history.
Earl hired additional workers as the contract schedule became reliable enough to support them. One was Joseph Keller, whose family had recently left a rented farm after losing access to the land. Another was Martin DeWitt, an experienced farmhand who had struggled to find steady work as nearby operations downsized. Earl interviewed them at the same kitchen table where he had once studied the warped first tabletop.
"It's dirty work sometimes," he told them. "It's careful work every day. I can teach the grading, but I can't teach you to care whether something is right before somebody pays for it." Joseph nodded. Martin asked whether the work would continue through winter. Earl showed them the contract term and explained what it guaranteed, what it did not, and when the hours might vary.