“But those people —” Ramona begins. Vance snorts.
“There’s some kind of deal going on around here. Somebody’s making offers on land. Somebody with money. Don’t know who it is or what they want this desert for.”
“They made us an offer,” Ramona says. Vance interrupts.
“I ain’t selling to somebody I don’t even know who he is and he won’t tell me! My grandfather homesteaded that place, broke his back. Died broke, too. I’m not selling it to anybody as long as I’m young enough and I got sons coming up. Besides, you heard ‘em. They want to farm it. Break up all that grass, as if there wasn’t enough farmland around here already. As if we didn’t need grass.”
“They came here too,” Iris said. “Yesterday. Offered me a lot of money for the place.” Vance and Ramona freeze. “I asked him to leave,” Iris says finally, knowing this is something of a lie because she has made it sound as if she has refused to sell, when all she has done is put off the decision.
“They show you that map?” Ramona asks. Iris nods. Vance says, “I know the Richards are ready to retire and none of their kids wants the place. They’ll sell in a minute. So will the Kandinskys.”
“But we won’t,” Ramona says. “And I’m sure the Livingstones won’t. They’re doing fine and he’s only in his early forties. Why would he sell?”
“Alfred Sigurd says he doesn’t like the smell of the deal,” Vance adds. “He figures maybe it’s crooked. Where’s all that money coming from? Nobody knows.”
“Maybe it’s drug money,” Ramona says. “That’s what some people
are saying,” she says defensively, when Iris turns to her quickly. “I don’t see why not, either. Where else does millions and millions like that come from these days?”
“To invest all that here,” Iris says, disbelieving. “Wouldn’t our grandpas die laughing?”
“If they weren’t already dead,” Ramona says. They grin at each other.
Vance says, “No, I’d rent for a while.”
“She’ll have to find somebody she can trust,” Ramona says sternly. “Men always try to take advantage of a woman on her own.” Vance stares at her. “You know that’s true!” Iris remembers the coffee and jumps up, brings the pot back to the table and fills their mugs.
“You’d better rent it soon,” he says to Ramona instead of Iris. Iris knows he has to be careful not to be seen giving another man’s wife advice. Even if the husband is dead. “Barney’s got himself a bad weed problem. If you don’t look after it right away, you won’t have no crop at all. If there’s anything you can do about it,” he adds somberly.
Every year there’s been a lot of talk between Barney and Vance about the weeds and how to handle them. And when Barney hired a crop sprayer, he had to be very careful to make sure that either there wasn’t a breath of wind, or if there was, that it was blowing away from the Normans’ land. It’s the one thing that over the years Iris has seen Vance really angry about — Barney’s insecticide or herbicide drifting onto his grassland. It makes her head ache to think this is her problem now.
“Iris?” Ramona says gently. “Iris? You okay?” She puts her hand over Iris’s where it sits limp on the table beside her untouched coffee mug. Iris sees how Ramona’s good sense, the way Iris could talk to her when she couldn’t always talk to her mother, has been a mainstay in her life. And she has just taken it for granted. Nobody speaks while she struggles and at last succeeds in pushing back her tears.
“I need help,” she admits finally, turning first to Ramona and then to Vance. “I’ve never had to run this place and I’m not sure I can. And I don’t understand this new machinery with its gauges and dials and lights and computers. It wasn’t anything like that when I used to summerfallow for Dad. And I don’t want to sell, not yet, anyway.”
Vance squirms uncomfortably, crossing and uncrossing his legs and stirring his coffee vigorously. An idea is dawning in Iris’s head, and it feels so right — she tests it rapidly and finds it holds up. She says slowly to Vance, “I know you don’t want to farm. But I trust you. And you know our land as well as Barney does — did. Will you look after it for me for a year or so? Rent it, I mean?”
There’s a moment’s startled silence during which Iris recalls how Barney had offered to buy Vance out more than once and he always refused. She remembers too what seemed on the surface to be good-natured sparring at the kitchen table over ranching versus farming that Iris knew, everybody present knew, underneath was otherwise. No, Vance is going to refuse.
“I don’t have the equipment,” Vance says. “I don’t have the money for the seed or the fuel. You can’t just pick up and start farming a place this big just like that. It takes cash and it takes machinery —” He turns to Ramona. “We gonna eat that cake, or what?” Ramona casts him a wry glance, gets up, goes to the cupboards, finds and brings back three forks and three dessert plates. Iris hardly notices, she’s rushing through Vance’s arguments to see if she can counter them.
“You can use Barney’s equipment. I’ll buy the seed and the fuel. We’ll work on shares — sixty-forty — that’s right, isn’t it? I can ask the government agrologist, he’ll know what the rate is. If it’s a good year, you can pay me back. If it isn’t, I’ll carry it — or write it off or something. Or if you’d rather, I’ll co-sign a loan at the Credit Union or the bank for you for fuel and seed. Anyway, you won’t be stuck, I swear.”
She has never made a deal before, she didn’t know she knew how, but hasn’t she been a farmer’s daughter and then a farmer’s wife all her life? She almost slaps the flat of her hand on the table to indicate the finality of the terms, but holds back at the last second. “Luke’s already arranged for Irvine Castle to take over Barney’s ranch for me until fall. So I have at least six months to make a decision about it.” Ramona and Vance glance at each other.
“I saw Daisy in Swift Current,” Iris says, reassuring them. “So I know she’s at home to help Irvine and Dennis. The three of them can handle it.”
“Oh,” Ramona says. “That would be why they could take it on.” There’s a note in her voice Iris can’t place, but when she looks at her, Ramona is busy cleaning her glasses with her shirttail.
“It takes a lot of money to farm this place,” Vance says. “I wonder if you know how much.” Iris’s heart has begun to pound as she understands this means he’s considering her proposal.
“I’ve seen the accounts,” she replies. Their operation has been too big for Iris to handle the books, an accountant does that, but Barney would tell her about the cost of this and that, more or less thinking out loud. And she was as interested as he was in the bushels per acre they were getting, and the price of spring wheat, durum, barley — whatever they were growing. “You know I’ve got the cash. I won’t charge interest, either,” she says quickly. “You’re neighbours, helping me out when I’m in trouble. I could hardly charge you to do it!”
Ramona straightens suddenly. Iris sneaks a glance at her to find she and Vance are staring at each other. If some communication is going on between them, she doesn’t want to disturb it, but Ramona’s face is flushed and her eyes are bright. Sharp eyes, intelligent eyes. It occurs to Iris that she’s always thought of Ramona as not very bright, or at least, not as bright as she is. I suppose it was because I had more money, she thinks, and is shocked to think such a thing true of herself.
“Cody wants to go to university,” Ramona says. She and Vance had three daughters, then stopped. But Vance’s longing for sons had caused them to start again after seven years. Cody is the second child, in Grade Twelve right now. “He’s got good marks, he’s the smartest one of my kids, but where’d we get the money? And student loans —”
Iris puts her hand over Ramona’s as it toys jerkily with the unused spoon by her cup. Ramona says, “And we got Crystal’s wedding to pay for …” Vance is still thinking.
“That’s some deal,” he says finally. “Luke’ll probably think I’m robbing you blind.”
“It’s none of his business.” They both look quickly at her. “If there’s any crop at all, you should make some money. Barney always said this place runs on volume, otherwise we’d be broke, too.” She
wishes she hadn’t said that last thing, but Ramona is staring at Vance again as if she didn’t hear her.
“Iris,” Vance hesitates, “you know I always helped Barney because … I needed the cash. You know I don’t like farming.” He swallows audibly.
“I know it,” she says, pleading now. “I know it, Vance. I don’t mean to turn you into a farmer —”
“You don’t have to do it forever,” Ramona puts in. “Just for a year.” There’s a tension behind the calm tone and Iris recognizes that Ramona is desperate for Vance to do it. Iris is suddenly aware that Vance’s principles have made life difficult for his family and she sees that Ramona has a hard layer of buried anger at him, though she has never said a word of complaint to Iris about him. Her own blindness to the nuances of her friends’ marriage embarrasses her. And Ramona’s integrity in keeping silent about it shames her a little, since she’d never hesitated to complain to Ramona about Barney whenever she felt like it. But that, she thinks, was because there was never serious trouble between the two of them — until he bought his ranch, and she couldn’t bring herself to talk to Ramona about it, not wanting to hear perhaps that she was wrong.
“The land’s already broke,” Ramona persists. “It’s not like you’re going to have to break land or anything. If you don’t farm it, somebody else will.”
“What if we have a crop failure?” he asks her angrily. “Don’t you see what could happen? I’d be in debt to Iris, I’d have to keep farming until I paid it off. We could be starting a drought cycle! It could be ten years before we get the rains again.”
“I’d never make you stay!” Iris interrupts. “I’ll take the responsibility for what happens, financial or otherwise. I’ll sign an agreement. You’ll never be stuck. I wouldn’t do that to you. Honest.” Staring at Ramona, his jaw set, Vance is holding his spoon in both hands as if he might snap it in two.
“There’s good moisture to start a crop right now,” Ramona says, but her voice is subdued. She and Iris’s eyes meet in a quick glance — from Iris, inquiry, from Ramona, a warning: Wait, don’t push too
hard. A sudden breeze sweeps through the kitchen from the open door and Iris feels a chill.
“I think you’d be surprised what a profit we can make on this place in a good year,” she says softly. “Even when prices aren’t very good, Barney and I have done pretty well.”
“Never mind what it does to the land.”
“Vance!” Ramona says, sharp now. He colours.
“I know you don’t approve,” Iris says. “I know you think we’re just mining the land here —”
“Won’t last another twenty years,” he states. Iris knows he’ll have to have his say before he can give in. She’s careful to show no sign that she can feel him weakening.
Ramona says, pressing harder, “For the kids’ sake.” He glances at her, then tosses the spoon down and it skitters across the table until it stops with a clink against her cup. Iris jumps, but Ramona just stares back at him, her lips tightening. Whatever is going on here between the two of them, Iris would just as soon not be witness to. Should she make an excuse to leave them alone for a minute? What would Barney do? Before she can move, Vance speaks again.
“Farmers like Barney ruined this country,” he says to her. She can feel colour rising into her face, knows Ramona is holding her breath. Never mind. He has to do this. “They drove away the wildlife and they poisoned the land with their chemicals. Never could get enough. Just kept breaking more land and breaking more land till there’s hardly no grass left. Old farmsteads, the road allowances that don’t even belong to them. You’re asking me to join ‘em, Iris —” He looks away, as if he suspects he’s going too far, or maybe he remembers that Iris is a widow now, with nobody to protect her.
“I worked every year on this place, for twenty years now,” he says, his voice softening. “And I didn’t like what I saw Barney doing, but I helped him anyway because I had kids to look after.” He’s silent for a moment and neither Iris nor Ramona move or speak. “I’m no farmer. Everybody knows that. But, I guess …” His voice trails off, but the two women say nothing, waiting. “I guess I wouldn’t be much of a friend to Barney, or to you, if I didn’t say I’d do it.” Ramona exhales slowly. Iris starts to thank him, but he interrupts
her. “But one year, that’s all. I got my own place to look after. At least Ryan and Cody can take up the slack while I’m farming.”
“You know I will too,” Ramona says unsteadily. For a second they lock eyes again. “When you were sick with pneumonia two winters ago I kept the place running.” Then, unexpectedly, while Ramona looks as if she’s about to cry, Vance smiles.
“Okay, it’s a deal,” he says.
“I’ll get a lawyer to draw up a contract tomorrow.”
“I’ll trust you with a handshake, Iris. Barney and me never had anything else.”
“Lawyers just cost money,” Ramona says. “You’ve been my friend since I was a kid. I’d trust you with my life.” Even though it feels strange to be doing it, Iris stands, moves to Ramona and hugs her briefly around the shoulders, pressing her cheek to the top of her head. What she feels for Ramona now is nothing less than love, and gratitude overwhelming her, she takes an instant, her face turned away from Vance, to get control. Then she reaches across the corner of the table and offers him her hand, seeing in her mind’s eye Barney shaking hands with machinery salesmen, or investment dealers, or men he’d hired to drive grain trucks during harvest.
“It’s a deal,” she says. She and Vance shake hands solemnly.
“Are we finally gonna get to eat that cake?” he asks, grinning, and they laugh with relief and excitement. Then Iris hurries to the counter for a sharp knife, comes back, peels back the plastic wrap, and cuts the cake. She serves them each a big piece, and while they’re eating it, Ramona asks Iris if she’s heard anything at all from Lannie.
“Everybody thought sure she’d be back for Barney’s funeral.”
“But nobody knows where she is to tell her,” Iris says, surprised, thinking this is common knowledge around the community. People had stopped asking years ago. “I haven’t heard from her — “she hesitates, about to modify the truth, then tries to think what the truth is. “It’s been years, I don’t know how long. At least five, maybe … even longer. Neither’s anybody else, not even Luke and Mary Ann. And it’s ten since she left.”