The County Fair

The Honest Season

Chapter 18: The County Fair

The Roosevelt County Fair was held the third week of July, as it had been held every year since 1923, on the fairgrounds north of Wolf Point, the county seat, the town on the Missouri where the railroad crossed and where the courthouse stood and where the county's business was transacted — the titles filed, the taxes paid, the marriages recorded, the deaths certified, the legal machinery of a rural county that governed 2,365 square miles of prairie and badlands and river bottom, the land that held the wheat and the cattle and the 10,000 people who lived there because the land was there and the living was possible, if not always easy.

Ruth entered wheat. She entered wheat in the Open Class, Hard Red Spring, the class that the fair had held since 1937, since the year before Arvid broke his first ground, the class that was the fair's acknowledgment that wheat was the county's industry, the county's identity, the county's reason for being. The class judged the wheat on appearance, on the uniformity of the kernels, on the color, on the plumpness, on the test weight, on the overall quality of the grain as a representation of the grower's skill and the soil's potential and the season's generosity.

She had entered every year for thirty-two years. She began entering in 1994, the year after she and Tom took over the operation from Carl and Maryann. She entered because Tom entered, because Tom had entered since he was fourteen, because Carl had entered before Tom, because entering wheat in the county fair was what Engers did the way planting wheat in April was what Engers did — not by obligation but by identity, by the self-definition of a family that grew wheat and that presented the wheat to the community and that accepted the community's judgment on the wheat, the judgment rendered by the fair judges, the three men or women who were chosen each year from the county's experienced growers and who examined the entries and who selected the champion and the reserve champion and the ribbons, the ribbons that were not worth anything in monetary terms but that were worth something in the terms that farmers used, the terms of recognition, of acknowledgment, of the community saying to the farmer: your wheat is good, your work is good, you are good at the thing you do.

Tom won Grand Champion three times. 1998, 2003, 2011. Ruth remembered each victory the way she remembered each planting — by the conditions, by the weather, by the particular combination of rain and heat and timing that produced the wheat that the judges chose. 1998 was a wet year, the soil full, the kernels plump. 2003 was a dry year, the moisture conserved by excellent fallow management, the kernels dense. 2011 was the year they sold the cattle, the year Tom focused entirely on wheat, the year the wheat responded to the focused attention the way any crop responds to attention — by producing, by thriving, by being the best version of itself.

Ruth won Grand Champion twice. 2014 and 2019. She won in 2014, the first year after Hector arrived, the year that the extra labor allowed her to tend the wheat with the particular attention that champion wheat required — the scouting, the timing, the selection of the best section for the entry, the harvesting of the entry by hand, the careful threshing and cleaning that produced the sample that went to the fair.

She won in 2019. The year after Tom died. The year that was the hardest year, the year of the first season alone, the year that the grief was acute and the work was overwhelming and the wheat responded not to her attention but to the weather, which was perfect — rain in May, moderate heat in July, no hail — the weather that produced the wheat that the judges chose, the wheat that won the blue ribbon, the champion ribbon, the ribbon that Ruth carried to the truck and held in her hands and looked at and did not cry, did not cry because crying at the fair was not what you did, what you did was accept the ribbon and nod and say thank you and drive home.

This year she brought a sheaf from Section 12. She harvested it on July 20, three weeks before the combine would harvest the rest, cutting the wheat by hand with the sickle, the hand sickle that hung in the barn beside the door, the sickle that Tom used and that Carl used before him, the tool of hand harvest, the tool that connected the modern farmer to the ancient farmer, the crescent blade that had not changed in five thousand years, the tool that cut wheat in Mesopotamia and that cut wheat in Montana and that would cut wheat wherever wheat grew, the unchanging tool of an unchanging act.

She cut twenty stems. She cut them at the base, close to the ground, the stems long, the heads intact, the kernels in the hard dough stage, nearly mature, the stage when the wheat was at its most presentable, the stage when the kernels were plump and the heads were full and the color was the golden-brown that the judges looked for, the color that indicated maturity and health and the particular quality of a wheat plant that had received what it needed and had converted it into grain.

She bundled the stems. She tied them with twine, the binder twine, the red twine that every farm had and that served a hundred purposes — tying bundles, tying gates, patching tarps, the universal fastener of rural Montana, the thing that held things together when nothing else was available. She tied the bundle and she brought it to the house and she laid it on the counter and she looked at it.

The wheat was good. The wheat was from Section 12, the heart, the section with the deepest topsoil, the section that her grandfather broke in 1938, the section that had been producing wheat for eighty-eight years and that had been the source of every entry that the Engers had ever submitted to the Roosevelt County Fair. The wheat from Section 12 was the best wheat on the farm because the soil was the best soil on the farm and the best soil produced the best wheat and the best wheat went to the fair and the fair said whether the best was good enough.

She drove to Wolf Point on Wednesday morning. She drove the F-150 with the sheaf on the seat beside her, wrapped in a clean towel, the towel that she used to protect the heads from the vibration of the truck, the vibration that could shatter the spikelets and scatter the kernels and turn a champion entry into a pile of loose grain on the seat, the damage that the sixty-mile drive could produce if the wheat was not protected.

Rust was in the cab. He rode on the floor of the passenger side, beneath the wheat, his body curled in the space between the seat and the dashboard, the space that was not large enough for a young dog but that was large enough for an old dog whose body had contracted, whose frame had settled, the way old buildings settled, the body finding its reduced dimensions and accepting them.

The fairgrounds were north of town, on the flat ground above the Missouri, the grounds that held the arena and the exhibit hall and the livestock barns and the carnival midway and the food stands and the parking lot that filled with trucks and trailers and the occasional Honda Civic from the wife or the daughter who came from town.

Ruth parked. She carried the sheaf into the exhibit hall. The exhibit hall was a metal building, one story, the building that held the baked goods and the canned goods and the quilts and the photography and the 4-H projects and the open-class grain entries, the contents of the county's domestic and agricultural life arranged on tables and on walls, the display of what the people of Roosevelt County produced with their hands and their ovens and their fields.

The grain table was in the back of the hall. Six entries this year. Six sheaves of Hard Red Spring wheat arranged on the white tablecloth, each sheaf labeled with a number, the numbers anonymous, the grower's name concealed until after the judging, the anonymity that ensured fairness, that prevented the judges from favoring the Enger wheat because it was Enger wheat or from disfavoring the Thoreson wheat because it was Thoreson wheat.

Ruth placed her entry. She set the sheaf on the table, in position four. She adjusted it, straightened the stems, fanned the heads slightly, the presentation that was not vanity but was respect — respect for the wheat, respect for the judges, respect for the tradition that said you presented your best and you presented it well.

She left the hall. She walked the fairgrounds. She walked past the livestock barns — the cattle barn, the sheep barn, the swine barn — the barns that smelled like animals and hay and the particular odor of captive livestock, the odor that Ruth knew from the years when they had cattle, the odor that she did not miss because missing the odor would have been missing the work and the work was cattle work and she had made her peace with the absence of cattle work.

She walked past the carnival midway. The midway was small — a Ferris wheel, a Tilt-A-Whirl, three game booths, a cotton candy stand. The midway was not the point. The midway was for the children, for the teenagers, for the young people of Roosevelt County who came to the fair for the rides and the food and the particular excitement of a gathering in a place where gatherings were rare, where the distance between people was the norm and the coming-together was the exception.

She walked past the rodeo arena. The arena was empty — the rodeo was Saturday night, three days away, the event that brought the cowboys from the ranches and the ropers from the feedlots and the barrel racers from the families that kept horses and that trained year-round for the six-minute run around three barrels that was the most intense six minutes of athletic performance that Roosevelt County produced.

She walked alone. She walked the fairgrounds the way she walked her fields — with attention, with the observational habit of a person who noticed things, who read the surfaces of the world for information, who could not walk through a space without assessing it, without calculating it, without forming the judgment that the space required.

She saw people she knew. She saw Betty Hoffman from the place to the north. She saw Dale Griswold, the insurance adjuster, who nodded and did not mention the hailstorm because the hailstorm was business and the fair was not business, the fair was community, and the boundary between business and community was observed at the fair the way the boundary between field and farmstead was observed at the farm — by custom, by understanding, by the unwritten rules that rural people followed because the rules held the community together.

She saw Hector. Hector was with Maria and the kids. The kids were at the midway — Lucia and Marco and Diego, the three Flores children spending their mother's money on rides and cotton candy and the particular freedom of a county fair, the freedom of a contained space where kids could run and the running was safe and the parents could let go and the letting-go was the gift that the fair gave to parents who spent the rest of the year holding on.

"Ruth," Hector said.

"Hector," she said.

"You enter?"

"Section 12."

He nodded. He knew the wheat from Section 12. He had planted it and sprayed it and walked it and he knew its quality and he expected it to do well because he expected Section 12 to do well because Section 12 was the best ground and the best ground produced the best wheat and the best wheat should win at the fair.

They did not discuss it further. They did not need to. The entry was made. The judging would happen. The result would come. The result would be whatever the result was and the result was not in their control, the result was in the judges' hands, and the judges were three growers from the county who would examine the six entries and who would select the best and the selection would be based on criteria that were partly objective and partly subjective, the criteria that combined the measurable — test weight, kernel size, uniformity — with the unmeasurable — the overall impression, the gestalt, the particular quality of a sheaf of wheat that made the judge say: this one, this is the best, this is the wheat that represents the county's best work.

The judging was Thursday. Ruth drove back to Wolf Point on Thursday morning. She drove alone — Rust in the cab, the drive familiar, the sixty miles on Route 2, the road that followed the Missouri, the road that connected the small towns of the valley — Culbertson, Bainville, Poplar, Wolf Point — the string of towns that the railroad had created and that the railroad sustained and that the wheat economy fed.

She arrived at the exhibit hall at ten. The judging was at eleven. She stood outside the hall and she waited. She waited with the other growers who had entered, the five other farmers who had brought their best wheat from their best sections and who were waiting the way Ruth was waiting, with the particular tension of a person who has submitted their work to judgment and who cannot influence the judgment and who can only wait.

The judging took forty minutes. The judges — Arlene Thoreson, Marvin Kemp, Ray Garcia — the three growers who were this year's panel, the three experienced farmers who had been selected by the fair board to assess the county's wheat. They entered the hall. They examined the entries. They conferred. They placed the ribbons.

Ruth entered the hall at noon. She walked to the grain table. She looked at the entries. She looked for the ribbon.

Grand Champion: entry number two. The blue ribbon on a sheaf of wheat that was not hers.

Reserve Champion: entry number four. The red ribbon on her sheaf, on her wheat, on her Section 12, on the wheat from the deepest topsoil on the Enger place.

Second place.

She picked up the sheaf. She held it. The red ribbon was attached to the twine, the ribbon that said Reserve Champion, the ribbon that said second best, the ribbon that said your wheat is very good but not the best, the ribbon that said close but not close enough, the ribbon that she had received four times in thirty-two years and that she accepted now the way she accepted every result the season produced — without complaint, without bitterness, with the understanding that the result was the result and the result was honest.

She carried the sheaf to the truck. She put it on the seat. She put the red ribbon on the dashboard. The dashboard held other ribbons — two blue champion ribbons, faded, from 2014 and 2019, and the ribbons from the years between, the red and white ribbons of second and third place, the accumulation of thirty-two years of entries, thirty-two years of bringing the best wheat from Section 12 to the Roosevelt County Fair and accepting the judgment and carrying the judgment home.

She drove home. She drove the sixty miles on Route 2 with the windows down and the wheat on the seat and the dog on the floor and the red ribbon on the dashboard and the question still unanswered.

The drive was forty-five minutes. The drive passed through the wheat country, the fields on both sides of the road, the fields that belonged to other farmers, the fields that held other wheat, the wheat that was growing and filling and ripening the way Ruth's wheat was growing and filling and ripening, the communal act of grain production that the county performed every season, the shared labor of a hundred farms and a thousand fields and a million acres of Hard Red Spring wheat that was the county's product and the county's identity and the county's reason for existing.

She drove and she looked at the fields and she looked at the ribbon and she looked at the road and she felt the thing that the fair always made her feel, which was membership, which was belonging, which was the feeling of being part of a community that did the same work and that judged the same work and that celebrated the same work, the community that was held together not by geography but by occupation, by the shared commitment to putting seed in ground and growing wheat and harvesting wheat and entering wheat in the fair and accepting the ribbon, whatever color the ribbon was, with the grace that the community expected and that the farmer provided.

The ribbon was red. The ribbon was second. The ribbon was not what she wanted but was what the judges gave and the giving was honest, was the honest assessment of three experienced growers who looked at six sheaves of wheat and who selected the best and her wheat was not the best, her wheat was the second best, and the second best was still good, was still a ribbon, was still the community saying: your wheat is good, your work is good, you are good at the thing you do.

She turned onto the county road. The gravel crunched. The dust rose. The caragana windbreak appeared, and behind it the house, and behind the house the barn, and behind the barn the fields, the fields that held the wheat that was filling and ripening and that would be ready in three weeks, the wheat that the combine would cut and the yield monitor would count and the elevator would weigh and the check would pay for.

She parked. She sat in the truck. Rust was asleep on the floor, the deep sleep of an old dog who had ridden sixty miles and who was tired and who would wake when Ruth opened the door and who would follow her to the porch and who would lie beside her and who would be there, the constant, the companion, the last living thing Tom trained.

She looked at the ribbon on the dashboard. The red ribbon. Second place. She looked at it and she felt the thing that the ribbon represented, which was not failure and not success but was participation, was the act of bringing your best to the judgment and accepting the judgment and carrying the judgment home and putting the judgment on the dashboard beside the other judgments and driving the forty-five minutes with the windows down and the wheat fields on both sides and the dog on the floor and the season moving toward the answer.

The season was moving. The season was always moving. The season did not stop for ribbons or for offers or for the particular melancholy of a woman who placed second at the county fair and who drove home alone and who sat in her truck in her driveway and looked at a red ribbon and wondered if the red ribbon was a sign, was the season telling her something, was the wheat from Section 12 saying: you are second, you are not first, you are good but you are not the best, and the not-being-the-best is the message, the honest message, the season's way of saying that good is not the same as best and that the good farmer who places second is still a good farmer but is a farmer who has been surpassed and the surpassing is the condition of a world that does not stop for any single farmer.

She did not believe this. She did not believe the ribbon was a sign. She believed the ribbon was a ribbon. She believed the wheat was wheat and the judges were judges and the judgment was honest and the honesty said: second place, which was where she was, in the season and in the decision and in the life, second place, the place between first and third, the place between champion and also-ran, the place between staying and selling, the place where the question lived and where the answer was forming and where the season was working on her the way the season worked on the wheat, slowly, daily, filling her with the substance that would make her ready.

She got out of the truck. Rust woke. He followed her to the porch. She sat on the step. She looked at the fields. The wheat was golden now, the green giving way to the gold, the transition that said the season was ending, the growing was finishing, the harvest was coming.

The harvest was coming. The harvest would bring the answer. The harvest would bring the number. The number would be honest.

She sat on the porch until the light was gone. She went inside. She made dinner. She ate alone. She washed her plate.

She went to bed. She lay in the dark. Rust breathed on the floor beside the bed.

Tomorrow the wheat would be one day closer to harvest. Tomorrow the season would be one day closer to the answer. Tomorrow Ruth would walk the fields and check the wheat and feel the kernels and read the color and do the work that the season required, the work that did not stop, the work that was the farmer's contribution to the covenant, the work that was honest.

The red ribbon was on the dashboard of the truck. The red ribbon would stay on the dashboard. The red ribbon was the fair's honest assessment and the honest assessment was accepted and the acceptance was the end of it.

The season was not about ribbons. The season was about wheat. The season was about the honest exchange between the farmer and the ground. The season was about the answer.

The answer was coming. The harvest was coming. Three more weeks.

Ruth closed her eyes. The wheat ripened in the dark. The season continued, honestly, toward the combine.