Fortunately the ground around the shed was well drained, because the bald tires on the old loader would get zero traction in mud.
Gingerly, as Joe raised the wide bucket, Dale attached the chains to the bucket, then looped them down from the control tower on the boom and around the elbow joint by the bucket. Then they played with the tension, Joe raising the bucket ever so gently as Dale made sure the chain didn’t pinch any of the hydraulic lines on the tower. Satisfied, he gave Joe a thumbs-up and slowly the arm was hoisted in the air.
Carefully, Joe drove it around the shed to the apron of trap rock out front, where he lowered it, leaving just enough tension on the chains to keep the boom upright.
A few minutes later Eddie Solce showed up with a twenty-ton lowboy off the back of his Chevy dually. Nice trailer. Eddie welded the frame himself. Dale gave Eddie a good deal on the digger arm because Eddie had done some difficult custom metalwork for him on fairly short notice.
Eddie was a vinegar shrivel of a man with a silver mustache and a silver Trautman farm hook where his left hand had been. He’d lost the hand down around Oakes, working on his brother’s farm, when he reached in to clear the corn picker one too many times. Doing metalwork around loud machines all his life had taken most of his hearing, and he had a habit of shouting when he spoke.
The customary joking ensued, Eddie giving Dale his usual loud shit about leaving town, moving to Florida. They raised the arm and placed it level on the trailer bed, loosed the chains, and proceeded to ratchet it in place with chain-link tie-downs.
Joe remained in the cab of the loader, just a shadow in the dirty window glass. Eddie waved at him once in perfunctory greeting. Eddie found it hard to look directly at Joe. He had a thing about blown-up Indians, Dale figured.
Whatever.
“You sure you don’t need this old Deere?” Dale asked one last time.
“Sorry, Dale. Hell, my wife finds out I’m bringing this boom on the place she’ll skull me with the frying pan.”
“Shit, don’t see why. You’re getting it practically for nothing. Now, for a few more bucks you can have…”
Eddie waved Dale away with his hand and his hook. No.
They shook hands. Joe climbed down from the loader and they watched Eddie get in his truck and haul the boom away.
Joe came around from in back of the shed where he’d parked the Deere. He said he was going to get some breakfast. He’d be back in an hour to check out Ace’s new lady friend.
As Dale walked Joe out to his van, a green Ford Explorer with Minnesota plates pulled off the highway and into his parking lot. A man and a little girl got out. The guy was six foot, outdoor lean, but not a farmer. Carpenter maybe. The kid was six or seven, with coppery hair done back in a pony. She wore denim shorts, a green T-shirt, and scuffed tennies.
Looking closer, Dale saw that the guy had a fresh bandage on his left hand and the makings of a shiner on his left cheek under his eye. Then he placed him.
“That’s the guy Gordy knocked on his ass in front of the bar yesterday,” Dale said in a low voice to Joe. “Supposed to be that woman’s husband, come to take her back home. Guess he didn’t get very far.”
“Still here though,” Joe said slowly. “Maybe he’s gonna give it another try.”
“Or maybe he’s shopping for big iron. Tell you what. He can get a hell of a deal on an old Deere 644.”
“An hour,” Joe said. Then he got in his van and drove away.
Dale walked up to the stranger with the black eye and the little girl. He extended his hand. “Dale Shuster. You need some help?” They shook hands.
“Phil Broker,” the guy said. “We’re just passing through on our way back home. Heard in town you were clearing out your stock. I got this little landscape operation on the side. Thought maybe I’d take a look.”
“Damn near all gone.” Dale motioned for Broker to follow him into the shed. Then he pointed at the Deere sitting just outside the open door at the far end. “All I got left is that loader. She’s got a few miles on her, so you could practically name your price.”
“Kinda looking for something in a backhoe.”
Dale smiled. “ ‘Backhoe in every garage’ was my old man’s motto. Sorry. No backhoes left.”
“I was looking at this Jap rig back home, a Komatsu…”
“Nah, don’t do it. They might be cheaper up front, but the repair and the replacement will kill you. That’s where they make their money. Stay American. Get you a Cat or a Deere.”
“I’ll remember that,” Broker said. He pointed to the loader. “Mind if I take a look?”
“Go on. Go ahead, start her up if you want.” He paused and pointed to the ground. “Ah, kinda muddy out there. Probably more than her footwear can handle.”
Broker nodded and stooped to his daughter. “Kit, I’m going to look at that machine there. You stay right here where I can see you. I’ll never be out of sight, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“She be all right here?” Broker asked.
“Sure,” Dale said. “I’ll find some cartoons on the TV.”
Arms folded defensively across her chest, Kit nodded warily.
Dale went and thumbed the remote off the weather channel, finally found Nickelodeon. “How’s that?”
“Thanks.”
Then Dale opened the refrigerator. “Would you like a Coke?”
The girl, arms still crossed, looked at him, wary, smart, judgmental. “That’s just sugar-water and acid. It rots your teeth and makes you fat.”
“Oh-kaaay…” Dale studied her and felt a slow rise in his mood. She was a pretty kid, healthy, athletic, nurtured. Smart little bitch would never be fat or unpopular.
“I’d like a water, please,” she said, pointing at several clear plastic bottles on the shelf next to the ranks of red cans in the open refrigerator.
“Sorry,” Dale said blandly. “I don’t have any water.” He watched her young face jerk, trying to make the evidence of her eyes and the message of his words link up. He shut the ice-box door. “Where you from?” he asked, sitting down in his desk chair. He was starting to enjoy himself.
She shifted her feet, uneasy. Glanced out toward her dad, then back again. “Devil’s Rock, Minnesota.”
He glanced toward the back of the building where Broker was walking around the loader, inspecting the worn-out tires. He stayed in sight, like he told his kid, but he was ducking around back there, definitely snooping. Dale swiveled his chair back toward the girl, composed himself with his hands folded in his lap. “You like stories?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Well. I know a guy named Ole, and he went over to Thief River Falls in Minnesota and he bought this cow.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Well. He got this cow home and he went out to milk it. You know how to milk a cow, don’t you?”
She nodded her head. “I been on a farm. You squeeze the things and the milk squirts out.”
“Right. The things are called tits, just like your mom’s got. Course she’s only got one on each side. Cow has four.”
The kid narrowed her eyes, alert but not quite sure what she was supposed to be wary about. She took a step back to put distance between herself and something in Dale’s manner.
Dale said, “So this guy yanks on the tits and the cow farts.”
The girl made a self-conscious face, but a fast lick of humor darted in her green eyes. The old bathroom humor connection.
“So the guy went and got his neighbor and brought him over and he says, ‘This is the damnest thing. I bought this cow and I go to milk it and I grab hold of the tit, and when I squeeze, the cow goes and farts.’
“And his neighbor says, ‘You got this cow in Minnesota, didn’t you?’
“And the guy says, ‘How’d you know that?’
“And the neighbor says, ‘ ’Cause I got my wife in Minnesota.’ ”
Dale laughed at his joke, and at the girl’s discomfort and confusion. She went to the edge of the concrete pad
