Property taxes.
Medical bills.
Equipment repairs.
Ray worried his father had made the kind of impulsive decision older men sometimes made when they were afraid life was becoming smaller.
He walked into the workshop.
Earl was sharpening a pencil.
"What exactly are you planning?"
Earl looked up.
"Tomorrow I'm sorting."
"Sorting what?"
"The tractors."
"They're already lined up."
"That's not sorting."
Ray leaned against the bench.
"You spent your savings."
"Some."
"On sixty broken machines."
"Yes."
"Do you know what you're doing?"
Earl thought about it.
"Not entirely."
Ray stared.
That answer frightened him more than a confident one would have.
"Dad."
Earl smiled faintly.
"I know what I bought."
"You just said—"
"I said I don't know exactly what I'm doing with it yet."
He pointed toward the field.
"Different question."
Ray rubbed his forehead.
"Please tell me there's a plan."
"There will be."
The next morning Earl started before sunrise.
He did not pick the best-looking tractor.
He did not attempt to start anything.
He placed wooden stakes in the yard and wrote categories on them.
400 FAMILY.
510 FAMILY.
600 SERIES.
UTILITY DIESEL.
INDUSTRIAL.
EARLY HYDRAULIC.
LATE HYDRAULIC.
Ray arrived at seven.
He found Earl driving stakes.
"What is this?"
"Organization."
For the next several hours they moved tractors.
Chains.
Come-alongs.
Ray's running loader tractor.
A winch mounted to Earl's truck.
Slowly the random row became groups.
Earl's granddaughter Megan arrived near noon.
Megan was twenty-two and Ray's oldest daughter.
She had recently finished two years at community college studying bookkeeping and business administration and was saving money before deciding whether to continue school.
She had grown up around Earl's workshop.
As a child she sorted bolts into coffee cans for fun.
Now she carried a notebook and a paper sack containing sandwiches Linda had sent.
"Grandma says you're supposed to eat."
Earl pointed toward a workbench.
"Put them there."
Megan looked across the field.
"I heard you bought a junkyard."
Ray said, "Don't encourage him."
Earl handed her his notebook.
"Tell me what you see."
She flipped through.
Pages of numbers.
Arrows.
Circles.
Abbreviations.
"Your handwriting is terrible."
"Besides that."
Megan studied it.
"Same hydraulic code keeps showing up."
Earl smiled.
Ray looked over.
"What?"
Megan pointed.
"Here."
"Here."
"And here."
"Different tractor models."
"Same number."
Earl nodded.
"Exactly."
For the first time, Ray saw the outline of his father's idea.
Earl walked toward three tractors.
One was faded orange.
One red.
One had been painted poorly enough that its original color was difficult to determine.
"These look unrelated."
Ray said.
"Bodywork does."
Earl opened the notebook.
"Engine family on this one matches that chassis."
He pointed.
"Hydraulics from this one match both."
He moved to the third.
"Rear drivetrain here is the same generation."
Ray looked skeptical.
"So?"
"So I might not own three broken tractors."
Earl smiled.
"I might own one good tractor stored in three places."
That sentence stayed with Ray.
They began with the healthiest chassis.
The engine was seized.
Earl removed the oil pan.
Metal glittered in the bottom.
"Bad."
Ray said.
"Very."
The tractor beside it had a ruined transmission.