The Last Section

The Honest Season

Chapter 24: The Last Section

Section 22 was the northwest quarter, the farthest field from the house, the field that took the longest to reach, the field that required driving the access road past the bins and past the north pasture and past the state lease section and then west on the two-track that crossed the coulee and climbed the ridge and opened onto the tableland where Section 22 sat, alone, exposed, the most remote piece of the Enger operation, the piece that Arvid did not break, that Carl broke in 1978 when he bought the Olson place, the piece that was added to the farm the way a room is added to a house — necessary for the expansion but never fully integrated, never quite belonging the way the original rooms belong.

Ruth cut Section 22 last. She had always cut it last. Tom cut it last. The cutting order was the same every year — Section 12 first, then Section 8 (what remained after the hail), then the south sections along the creek, then the north sections, then the state lease, then Section 22. The order was logical — start with the best ground, the ground that ripened first because the soil was deepest and the moisture was highest, and end with the worst ground, the ground that ripened last because the soil was thinnest and the moisture was lowest, the gradient of quality that determined the gradient of readiness that determined the order of harvest.

But the order was also personal. Ruth cut Section 22 last because Section 22 was the hardest. Section 22 was the field that asked the most and gave the least. Section 22 was the field where the topsoil was twelve inches deep instead of twenty-two, where the subsoil was caliche — the calcium carbonate hardpan that the plow could not penetrate, the mineral layer that sat beneath the topsoil like a floor, a hard white floor that the roots hit and could not pass through, the barrier that limited the root depth and therefore limited the moisture storage and therefore limited the yield.

Section 22 produced twenty-eight bushels per acre in a good year. Twenty-eight. Section 12 produced forty-two. The difference — fourteen bushels, the gap between the best and the worst — was the difference in soil, in depth, in the geological accident that gave one piece of ground twenty-two inches of topsoil and another piece twelve inches and the giving was not fair and was not earned and was not the farmer's fault or the farmer's credit, was simply the ground, the actual ground, the ground that preceded the farmer by millions of years and that would outlast the farmer by millions of years and that did not adjust its quality to accommodate the farmer's desires.

Twenty-eight bushels per acre. It was barely profitable. The cost of planting and tending and harvesting Section 22 was nearly the same as the cost of planting and tending and harvesting Section 12 — the same seed, the same fertilizer, the same fuel, the same wear on the machinery, the same labor. The inputs were the same. The output was different. The output was fourteen bushels less, and fourteen bushels at $6.40 was $89.60 per acre, and $89.60 per acre across 640 acres was $57,344, and $57,344 was the difference between what Section 22 earned and what Section 12 earned, the difference that the soil determined and that the farmer could not change.

Some farmers would not farm Section 22. Some farmers would leave the marginal ground fallow permanently, would concentrate their resources on the productive ground, would make the economic calculation that said the thin soil did not justify the inputs. Ruth farmed it. Tom farmed it. Carl farmed it. They farmed it because it was theirs and because farming what was yours was what farmers did, was the ethic of completeness, the ethic that said you did not pick and choose, you did not farm only the easy ground and leave the hard ground, you farmed all of it, every acre, every section, every piece of the operation, because the operation was a whole and the whole required all its parts and the parts that were weakest were the parts that needed the most attention, the most care, the most work.

Ruth drove to Section 22 on August 19. She drove the combine, the S790, the machine that had been cutting for two and a half weeks, the machine that had harvested 1,800 acres and that had processed approximately 72,000 bushels and that had worn its sickle sections and dirtied its filters and consumed 3,200 gallons of diesel and that was tired, if a machine could be tired, the way Ruth was tired, the fatigue of sustained effort, the fatigue that was not acute but was cumulative, the accumulation of fourteen-hour days and the vibration and the heat and the dust and the unrelenting attention that harvest demanded.

The two-track crossed the coulee. The combine descended into the draw, the low ground where the water ran in spring and where the grass grew tall and where the coyotes denned and where the mule deer bedded in the heat of the day. The combine climbed the far side. The ridge opened. Section 22 appeared.

The wheat was thin. The wheat on Section 22 was always thin — shorter, less dense, the canopy open enough that Ruth could see the soil between the rows, the soil that was lighter in color than the soil of Section 12, lighter because there was less organic matter, less humus, less of the dark carbon-rich material that good soil contained and that thin soil lacked. The wheat was golden, was ripe, was ready — the kernels hard and dry, the moisture at 12.8 percent, drier than Section 12 because the thin soil dried faster, the reduced profile releasing its moisture more quickly, the wheat on thin soil finishing its life sooner because the resources ran out sooner.

She positioned the combine at the southeast corner. She lowered the header. She engaged the separator. She drove forward.

The header cut the wheat. The wheat was shorter — twenty-four inches instead of thirty — and the header rode lower to catch it, the cutter bar six inches from the ground, the lower height that captured more of the short stems and that risked more ground contact, the risk that a rock or a root would catch the sickle bar and break a section and the breaking would be a stop and the stop would be time and the time was the thing that the harvest could not afford.

The yield monitor read. Twenty-six bushels per acre. The number appeared on the screen, lower than Section 12, lower than the farm average, the number that Section 22 produced, the honest output of thin soil in a fair year. Twenty-six was below the farm average of thirty-eight, below the county average of thirty-four, below the number that a financial analyst would call viable. Twenty-six bushels at $6.40 was $166.40 per acre. The cost of production was approximately $145 per acre. The profit was $21.40 per acre. Twenty-one dollars and forty cents. The margin between revenue and cost that was the margin between farming this ground and not farming this ground, the margin that was thin, was narrow, was the agricultural equivalent of a ledge, a six-inch ledge on a cliff face, the ledge that the farmer stood on and that held and that would hold unless the price dropped or the yield dropped or the costs rose, and any of those things could happen and any of those things would push the farmer off the ledge.

Ruth drove. She drove through Section 22 the way she drove through every field, with attention, with the focus that the work required, but with an additional quality that she did not bring to Section 12, a quality that was not patience but was something adjacent to patience, something that was closer to empathy, the empathy of a farmer for a field that struggled, that produced from depleted resources, that gave what it could from what it had and that what it had was less than what the other fields had and the less-ness was not the field's fault.

The field was trying. Ruth felt this. She felt it in the wheat, in the short stems and the small heads and the light kernels, the wheat that was not the best wheat and that was not champion wheat and that would not win a ribbon at the fair but that was wheat, was grain, was the product of seed and soil and sun and rain, the honest product of an honest piece of ground doing honest work with limited resources.

This was the lesson. This was what Section 22 taught, the lesson that Ruth cut last because she needed to hear it last, needed it to be the last thing the harvest said, the closing statement, the final chapter of the season's teaching.

The lesson was that the hardest ground still produces.

The lesson was that producing from hard ground is the definition of honest work.

The lesson was that the value of the work is not measured by the yield. The value of the work is measured by the work itself, by the doing, by the fact of a woman in a combine on a thin-soil field in August cutting wheat that will barely pay for the fuel to cut it, cutting it anyway, cutting it because the ground grew it and the growing deserves the harvesting and the harvesting is the completion of the covenant and the covenant applies to all the ground, not just the good ground, not just the profitable ground, but all the ground, every acre, every section, every piece of the operation that the farmer has committed to.

Tom would have said: you don't leave wheat standing. Tom would have said it simply, without philosophy, without the extended analysis that Ruth performed in the cab while the yield monitor read twenty-six and the combine moved through the thin wheat. Tom would have said: the wheat is there, we cut it, that's the job. And Tom would have been right, and the rightness would have been sufficient, would have been the complete statement of the thing that Section 22 represented.

But Ruth was not Tom. Ruth was Ruth. And Ruth needed more than the simple statement. Ruth needed to understand why the simple statement was true, needed to dig beneath the surface of the axiom the way the roots dug beneath the surface of the soil, needed to find the deeper truth that supported the surface truth, the subsoil truth that held the topsoil truth.

The deeper truth was this: the work does not depend on the return. The work is its own justification. The work is the thing that the farmer does because the farmer is a farmer and because the doing is the being, the identity and the action fused, the person and the work indistinguishable.

Ruth was the work. The work was Ruth. She understood this now, in the cab, on Section 22, on the last field, in the last days of the harvest, in the closing pages of the season's book. She understood that the question the season had been asking was not whether she should sell the land or keep the land. The question was whether she could separate herself from the work, whether the Ruth who did not farm was still Ruth, whether the woman without the wheat was still the woman.

She drove. The yield monitor read twenty-six. The stubble appeared behind the combine. The field opened. The wheat disappeared into the machine and emerged as grain in the tank and the grain was light — the kernels smaller, the test weight lower, the grain of thin soil, the honest grain of a field that gave what it had.

She filled the tank. She signaled Hector. Hector was there — the grain cart pulled alongside, the auger received the grain, the cart carried the grain to the truck, the truck carried the grain to the elevator, the shuttle that did not care whether the grain came from Section 12 or Section 22, the shuttle that treated all grain equally, the democracy of the elevator that received every farmer's wheat and mixed it and stored it and shipped it and paid for it at the same price, the same $6.40, regardless of whether the wheat came from deep soil or thin soil, from the best field or the worst field, from the ground that produced forty-two or the ground that produced twenty-six.

The day passed. The sun moved. The heat was moderate — eighty-eight degrees, the August heat that was not the July heat, the heat that was less intense but more tired, the heat of a summer that was ending, the summer that was running down the way a clock runs down, the energy dissipating, the days shortening, the season concluding.

She cut through the afternoon. She cut the south half of Section 22, the half that faced the coulee, the half where the soil was thinnest because the slope had eroded the topsoil over the decades, the erosion that wind and water performed on exposed ground, the removal that reduced twelve inches to ten and ten to eight and the reduction was the cost of farming sloped ground, the cost that the farmer paid in yield and that the soil paid in depth.

The yield dropped. Twenty-four bushels per acre on the south half. Twenty-four. The number on the monitor, the number that Ruth read and accepted and did not argue with because the number was the ground's honest answer to the question she had asked in April when she planted the seed, the question that was: what will you give me if I give you everything I have?

The ground answered: twenty-four. The ground said: this is what I have. This is the output of eight inches of topsoil over caliche hardpan with limited moisture storage and reduced fertility. This is what I can do. I am not Section 12. I am not deep and rich and generous. I am thin and shallow and I give what I can and what I can give is twenty-four bushels per acre and the twenty-four is honest and the honesty is what you planted for, Ruth Enger, the honesty is what you are harvesting, the honesty is the season's answer.

She accepted the answer. She accepted it the way she accepted the hailstorm and the heat and the red ribbon and the empty chair at the kitchen table. She accepted it because acceptance was the farmer's response to the ground's honesty, the acceptance that was not resignation but was respect, the respect for a truth that could not be argued with, a truth that was measured in bushels and that the bushels proved.

She finished Section 22 at 7:45 PM on August 20. She cut the last pass. The combine moved through the last strip of standing wheat — sixty feet wide, a half-mile long, the final wheat of the season, the last wheat that the combine would cut, the last wheat that this season would produce. The header cut and the reel turned and the draper belts carried and the feeder chain conveyed and the rotor threshed and the sieves separated and the grain fell into the tank and the straw blew out the back and the stubble appeared and the wheat was gone.

The wheat was gone. The field was stubble. Section 22, 640 acres, was done.

She raised the header. She disengaged the separator. The rotor wound down, the spinning slowing, the momentum dissipating, the machine transitioning from working to resting, from harvest to silence.

She sat in the cab. She looked at the field. The field was stubble. The light was gold, the late-August light, the light that was not the summer light but was the beginning of the autumn light, the light that was softer, lower, the light of a sun that was retreating, the days shortening by two minutes and seventeen seconds each day, the retreat that would continue through September and October and November and into the winter, the long winter that would cover the stubble with snow and the snow would melt and the melt would soak the soil and the soil would hold the moisture and the moisture would be there in April when the next season began.

If there was a next season. If Ruth was still here. If the land was still hers. If the combine was still in the barn and the drill was still in the barn and the truck was still at the elevator and the dog was still on the porch and the wrench was still on the pegboard and the whole apparatus of the farm was still intact, still functioning, still doing the thing it was built to do.

She climbed down from the combine. She stood on the ground. The ground was hard — August ground, dry ground, the ground that had given its moisture to the wheat and that was now depleted, was empty, was the ground at the end of the season, the ground that had done its work and that was resting.

She bent down. She picked up a handful of soil. The soil was light, was dry, was warm in her hand. It was not the soil she had picked up in April — that soil was cold and heavy and wet and full of potential. This soil was warm and light and dry and empty of potential. This soil had given its potential to the wheat and the wheat had been cut and the grain was in the elevator and the potential was realized, was converted, was no longer potential but was actual, was fact.

She squeezed the soil. It fell through her fingers. Dry soil does not clump. Dry soil does not hold together. Dry soil is individual particles, each particle separate, each particle alone, the community of the soil dissolved by the absence of water, the water that held the particles together and that was gone.

She dropped the soil. She wiped her hand on her jeans. She stood. She looked at the field. She looked at the coulee. She looked at the ridge. She looked at the sky, the enormous sky, the sky that held the last of the light, the light that was going, the light that would return tomorrow but that was going now, was retreating, was leaving the field to the dark.

The last field. The hardest ground. The honest ground that produced from limited resources and that gave what it had and that asked for nothing except the seed and the work and the attention, the attention that Ruth gave every field but that she gave Section 22 with a particular tenderness, the tenderness not of sentiment but of recognition, the recognition of a person who saw in the thin soil and the low yield the image of her own condition, the condition of a woman who was fifty-eight and alone and who produced from depleted resources and who gave what she had and who asked for nothing except the season.

She drove the combine back across the coulee, up the two-track, past the state lease, past the north pasture, past the bins, to the barn. She parked the combine in its bay. She shut down the engine. The engine stopped. The silence was immediate and total, the silence of a machine that had been running for two and a half weeks and that was now still, the silence that was not absence but was conclusion, was the mechanical equivalent of the final page.

The harvest was over.

2,240 acres harvested. Approximately 84,000 bushels of Hard Red Spring wheat. Average yield: thirty-eight bushels per acre across all sections, the average that included the forty-two of Section 12 and the twenty-six of Section 22 and everything between, the average that was the farm's number, the farm's honest answer, the answer that the season gave.

Ruth stood in the barn. She stood beside the combine, in the fluorescent light, beside Tom's pegboard and Tom's workbench and Tom's motor. She stood in the space where Tom died and she felt the season's completion, the weight of the ending, the ending that was harvest and that was also the ending of the time she had asked for, the time she had requested from Jim Grayson in April.

September was eleven days away. September first was eleven days away. The call was eleven days away. The answer was eleven days away.

She turned off the barn lights. She closed the barn door. She walked to the house. Rust was on the porch. She sat beside him. She put her hand on his head. The stars were out. The fields were stubble. The season was over.

The last field was cut. The hardest ground had produced. The honest work was done.

Now the honest answer.