“Then we find ourselves at an impasse,” the judge said heavily. There was a pause. Then his voice was barely above a whisper as he said, “Henry. I don’t think you appreciate how desperate I am. It’s been almost two years, son. In all of that time you’ve done no more than throw a few pennies my way—you owe me hundreds of dollars.”
“I know, Judge,” Henry said urgently. “I’ll think of something. I really will.”
There was a terse pause. I pressed my hand to my mouth.
“Do you know what would happen if I tried to sue you, Henry?”
“No, sir.”
“The case would go before the court in Dalhart. And do you know who the judge is there?”
“No, sir.”
“Judge Nolan Wickingham. I’m not saying he’d rule in my favor, Henry, but I am saying I went to law school with him and I was best man at his wedding.”
“Sir, I promise you. I’ll do everything in my power to pay you back as soon as I can. But I have nothing for you to take even if you did decide to sue me.”
“You have land.”
“My father has land—” Henry corrected him. I could hear the panic in his voice, and I felt it in my chest.
“I’m not so sure Judge Wickingham would see it that way, Henry. That asset will be yours soon enough. Maybe the courts would see fit to pass the land on to me a little early so that I can sell it to recoup my losses.”
“Sir,” Henry croaked. “I mean no disrespect, but who’s buying farmland right now?”
“No one is buying stores in a dying town in the middle of nowhere—but I know I could find someone to take a five-hundred-acre farm off my hands for the right price.”
“Sir—please.”
“I don’t want to do this, Henry. Do you hear me? I need you to find some money somehow or I’ll have no choice.” I heard sudden movement inside, and, worried that the judge was moving toward the window, I panicked and ran back to the church. I stepped inside just as Mother put her hand on the door, apparently about to come looking for us. She had a plate of food in her other hand.
“Where on earth have you been?” she asked, peering at me in confusion. “You’re missing the luncheon. Go quickly before all the good food goes.” When I remained frozen in place, catching my breath, she dropped her voice and added, “You know as well as I do this is the best meal you’ll have all week. This is not the time to go wandering away!”
I saw Henry and the judge walk into the vestibule a little while later. Henry had Mother’s coloring—warm brown hair and skin that tanned instead of burned—but that day, he was as pale as I’d ever seen him. I waved at him and pointed to the chair beside me, where the plate of food I’d fixed for him was waiting. Beads of sweat covered his brow as he moved the plate to sit down.
“Everything okay?” I asked him.
“Everything’s just fine,” he lied, forcing an unconvincing smile as he began to pick at the food.
The next day, Henry and I went to check on the crop in one of the fields farthest from the house. We rode the horses side by side, their hooves sinking into the thin dust with each step. My cheeks were windburned, and nothing I did seemed to help. I tried smearing them with Vaseline to protect them, but by the time I walked from the house to the barn, the Vaseline was coated in dust. The best I could do was wear a kerchief over the lower part of my face for as much of the day as I could stand. The wind had become relentless, blowing for weeks; the only difference each day was whether it was a gale or a breeze. That day it was somewhere in the middle.
I’d wanted to talk to Henry the previous night, but as determined as I was, he seemed equally determined to avoid me. He’d gone to bed at the same time as Mother and Daddy. Now was my chance.
“I followed you and the judge to the courthouse and listened through the window,” I told Henry, deciding it was best to just blurt it out. The only sign he gave that he’d even heard what I said was the way his mouth tightened. “Do you think he’s right? Could he really take the farm?”
“This is their game—I don’t even know the rules I’m playing by. Maybe Judge Nagle just said he’d take the farm to scare me. He seems as desperate as we are, so I guess that’s possible. I just don’t even know who to talk to. We can’t afford a lawyer of our own. I don’t even have a copy of the contract.”
“So what do we do?” I asked, feeling queasy. Henry brought his horse to a stop and swung down to the ground. He fetched a small spade from the tool kit he kept on his saddle, and in silence, he started to dig—sending dust flying all over the withered plants in the field. Less than half the seeds had germinated that year, and most of the plants that did died before they even formed seed heads. Our fields contained row after row of patchy and deformed brown stalks. Even the weeds were unusually sparse that year—all the soil seemed able to produce was the occasional patch of Russian thistle or bull nettle. The dead thistles rolled all over the fields in the dust storms, getting stuck on the wire and providing a framework for the dust to settle on, until every fence had disappeared beneath a mound of dirt.